CHAPTER XXX.

THE INDIANS OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY.

The course of this narrative has shown that a large portion of the business of the Missouri River steamboats pertained to the Indians who dwelt on the banks of that stream. The great valley had been their home for unknown generations. The tribes were distributed along its course or those of its tributaries, from its mouth to their sources. First came the Missouris, whose name the river still bears--a tribe long since extinct as a separate organization. The Osages and the Kansas likewise bequeathed their names to the rivers in whose valleys they dwelt. The Omahas have lived, since the white man knew them, a short distance above the city which perpetuates their name, while a hundred miles to the westward in the valley of the Loup Fork of the Platte dwelt the four tribes of the Pawnees. From the point where Sioux City now stands, northward nearly to the British line, the great nation of the Sioux held a wide tract of country on both sides of the river. Within their territory dwelt the treacherous Aricaras, near the mouth of the Grand River, and the stalwart Cheyennes at the eastern base of the Black Hills. The unhappy tribe of the Mandans lived near the river some distance north of the modern town of Bismarck, and near them were the Minnetarees, or Grosventres of the Missouri. Along the northern shore of the river from the Mandans to Milk River, and northward far into British territory, roamed the numerous bands of the Assiniboines, one of the most populous of the plains tribes. From Milk River to the sources of the Missouri was the land of the hostile Blackfeet, where dwelt the Piegan, Blood, and Blackfoot bands and the Grosventres of the Prairies. Finally, in the valley of the Yellowstone and its great tributary the Bighorn, was Absaroka, the home of the proud tribe of the Crows.

[Sidenote: GRAVITATE TOWARD THE RIVER.]

All of these tribes gravitated toward the great watercourses, as man, in every stage of his history has done. It was not in this case the use of the stream as a transportation route that made it attractive. The Missouri Valley tribes, unlike those of the Great Lakes, or the Coast, or the northern rivers, were not good navigators. The stream was a treacherous one, and its shores did not yield a timber suitable to the crude workmanship of the Indian. Skin boats were used to a limited extent, but as a rule the horse and not the boat was the means of travel and transportation. The great importance of the river arose from other considerations. In a region where streams are scarce and where most of them dry up in the summer, this river furnished a never-failing supply of as healthy a drinking water as flows on the surface of the globe. Then its valley was the only timbered region of consequence for hundreds of miles on either side. Groves of cottonwood, walnut, cedar, and willow lined its banks, and the Indian here found all the wood that his simple order of life required. The abundant groves along the bottoms gave splendid shelter from the heat of summer and the cold of winter.

[Sidenote: STRANGE VISITORS.]

The entire watershed of the river was thus originally occupied by Indians. Considering its extensive area, their numbers were very few--scarcely one to ten square miles. But as they mostly dwelt near the rivers, the country seemed to the early navigators more densely populated than it really was. Into this primeval domain there came, more than two centuries ago, strange visitors who never went away. They were welcomed at first; but every foot of ground they gained was held, farther and farther up the river to its source among the mountains, thence to the River of the West, and down its rugged valleys to the western sea. It was a sad day to the tribes of the Missouri Valley, as to every other, when the white man came, but a far sadder day when the emigrant and settler came. Between these two epochs there was a long interval in which the paleface and his red brother lived in comparative harmony together. It was the era of the trader. Under the fur-trade régime the Indian might have continued his native mode of life indefinitely. The trader never sought to change it. He introduced but few innovations; had no desire to introduce any; and looked with as jealous an eye as the Indian himself upon the approach of civilization. This relation of the two races was ideal, and during its continuance the Indian is seen at his best.

[Sidenote: THE COMING OF THE EMIGRANT.]

All this was changed when the emigrant came. The traders were few in number and made no permanent settlements. The emigrants came by the thousand and spread themselves all over the country. They made roads, discovered rich mines, laid out cities, and declared their purpose to send the “fire-horse” across the plains, as they had sent the “fire canoe” up the great river. Before this ever-increasing host the game wasted away. It was estimated that in the single year 1853 four hundred thousand buffalo were slain. As the buffalo was the very life of the plains tribes, its extermination meant inevitable starvation or hopeless dependence upon the government.

[Sidenote: AN UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM.]

All this the Indian foresaw with unerring vision, and it affected him just as it would any other independent people. A state of unrest ensued. Depredations and outrages occurred--for the Indian understood no other way of expressing his displeasure,--and the government was forced to interfere. The era of the fur trade came to an end, and that of the treaty, the agent, and the annuity, began--an era whose history will bring the blush of shame to its readers to the latest generations. And yet it would be wholly unjust to charge the flagrant wrongs which followed to this or that particular cause. History will exonerate the government from any but the purest motives in its dealings with the Indians. It may have been unwise in some of its measures; it was certainly weak in carrying its purposes into effect; but it always sought, with the light it possessed, the highest good of the Indian. The problem, unfortunately, was beyond human wisdom to solve. The ablest minds of this country and century have grappled with it in vain. It was the problem of how to commit a great wrong without doing any wrong--how to deprive the Indian of his birthright in such a way that he should feel that no injustice had been done him. It was the decree of destiny that the European should displace the native American upon his own soil. No earthly power could prevent it. _This_ was the wrong; all else was purely incidental; and whatever consideration or generosity might attend the details of the change, nothing could alter the stern and fundamental fact.[64]

[Sidenote: THE TREATY SYSTEM.]

[Sidenote: POLICY OF INSINCERITY.]

With this impossible problem our law-givers wrestled for a century in vain. They sought to deal with the Indian on a basis of political equality, where such equality did not and could not exist. The treaty system was the outgrowth of this attempt. Perhaps it was impossible to deal with the Indians except by treaty, but it is difficult at this day to see the wisdom of that method. It only deferred the inevitable. It made promises which, in the nature of things, could not be kept.[65] Made to be broken, they served no other purpose than to lull the natives into temporary quiet while the paleface was fastening his grip ever more tightly upon their country. It was throughout a policy of insincerity; the fostering of a spirit of independent sovereignty when in fact the tribes were only vassals. Like all insincerity, it bred endless wrong. The loss of his lands would not have been so bad to him if he had understood it from the start; but as it was, he had not only to bear this loss, but the ever-increasing evidence of the white man’s bad faith; and he thus came to hate the whites and distrust their government.[66]

This, if we were to venture a criticism, has been the government’s one great mistake in dealing with the Indians. A firm attitude of authority toward the tribes, with an unqualified claim to sovereignty of the soil, and an assertion of the right to reduce it and them to a condition of ultimate civilization, would have eliminated the element of bad faith which has always characterized the treaty system. But instead of this the government continued to foster to the last the notion of tribal sovereignty over the lands of the West. Under the farce of obtaining these lands by treaty it saved itself from the charge of wresting them by force from the Indian. It was a distinction without a difference, and in its effort to save its honor in one direction, it hopelessly sacrificed it in another.

[Sidenote: TREATY OF FORT LARAMIE.]

[Sidenote: A SUCCESSFUL COUNCIL.]

The first general treaty with the tribes of the upper Missouri was held at Fort Laramie in September, 1851. It included nearly every tribe in the valley from the Omahas up, except the Blackfeet. The Indians came from far and near and pitched their separate camps on the council ground. Tribes that had never met before here made each other’s acquaintance. Others, who had met only on the battlefield, encamped side by side in peace. The government was represented by men of experience and dignity. In particular, Superintendent D. D. Mitchell and Father P. J. De Smet were men in whom the Indians felt the most implicit trust. The council was convened for the purpose of coming to some understanding among the tribes themselves and between them and the whites as to their immediate future relations. It was hoped to put an end to inter-tribal wars and to outrages upon the emigrants, and to secure the right of way for roads and railroads across the Indian lands. The several tribes showed the greatest interest in the work of the council. The deliberations were conducted with solemnity and evident sincerity on both sides. The presents from the government were munificent and well chosen, and were received with deep satisfaction. When the work of the council was completed, the tribes bade each other farewell, and departed for their several homes with every appearance of mutual trust and friendship. To all outward appearances the council had been a complete success. Treaties were made with all the tribes present. The gifts received were to be in full compensation for all previous losses caused by the white man, and the Indians were to receive goods annually to the aggregate amount of fifty thousand dollars. The treaties, as amended in Washington, were to remain in force for fifteen years. Four years later a similar treaty was made near Fort Benton with the several bands of the Blackfeet by a commission consisting of Governor I. I. Stevens and Alfred Cummings, Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

[Sidenote: A MIXING OF GOODS.]

It was thus that the annuity system came into extensive vogue among the tribes of the upper Missouri. It probably gave rise to more abuses than any other one thing in the conduct of Indian affairs. The temptations for fraud were as great as the opportunities for its commission were numerous and excellent, and it required more than average public virtue to resist them. The Indian could not go to the market and help select his goods; he had no hand in awarding the contracts for their transportation to his country; nor any means of seeing that he received what he was entitled to. His only function was to accept what the agent saw fit to give him. During the Civil War, when the currency depreciated to such an enormous extent, the annuities shrank in quantity as prices went up, and the Indian was a heavy loser from causes that he could not comprehend. The annuities were always sent up the river in the boats of the traders, generally in those of the American Fur Company. The agents were given no escort and no separate residence or warehouse, and were compelled to throw themselves upon the hospitality of the traders. In this way the annuity goods became mixed with those of the traders, and the Indian paid in furs for what he was entitled to as a free gift. This abuse was a grave one and very difficult to correct, for all that the Department required in evidence of the delivery was the signature of the chiefs, witnessed in the usual manner. It is easy to see how wide open the door was in this business for the commission of almost unlimited fraud.[67]

[Sidenote: ANNUITY SYSTEM.]

It is doubtful if, during the period from 1850 to 1870, the Indian tribes along the Missouri River received more than half the bounty which was promised them by the government.

[Sidenote: A CORRUPT ATMOSPHERE.]

In the early days of the Republic the conduct of Indian affairs was in the hands of the military authorities, and it has always been a mooted question whether it ought not to have remained there. The verdict of history will undoubtedly be that it should. The spoils system came into absolute control of the agencies, and fitness and experience received scant consideration. There was more or less friction between the agents and the military, for the latter always had to be called in when the former could no longer control their flocks. But the greatest defect of the system was the total absence of anything like a fixed and recognized procedure. The annual reports of the agents show how utterly lacking in all the elements of practical business was their haphazard management. Every new agent felt called upon, as a necessary preliminary to his own work, to criticise the conduct of his predecessor. He put forth new schemes and tried new experiments, until finally he himself made way for a successor who in turn deplored the failures of those who had gone before him.

Probably the majority of the agents were men of average integrity, but there were many who sought the business solely for “what there was in it.” The whole atmosphere of the Indian trade was so against an honest conduct of the business that an agent who should undertake to enforce strict integrity in his official work was regarded as a fit subject for an asylum of the feeble-minded. At one time the experiment was tried of appointing only clergymen to the agencies. But the scheme was a visionary one. What these agents made up in honesty they lacked in experience, and were pliant tools in the hands of the shrewd trader. Their saintly character, moreover, was not always a sure panoply against the attacks of worldly temptation. To more than one of them, in the words of Captain La Barge, “a dollar looked bigger than a cart wheel,” and they, like the rest, learned how to connive at the crookedness of the traders. But whatever their virtues or intentions, they were powerless to accomplish any good work. The fault was in the system, which was inherently vicious, and mere honesty in the individual could not eliminate its defects.

[Sidenote: THE SYSTEM AT FAULT.]

The actual results of the treaty-annuity-agency system in the conduct of Indian affairs are now matters of history. No treaty that it was possible to devise could stand. The encroachment of settlement continually increased. It led to resistance on the part of the Indians, and resistance to chastisement and to new treaties, and these invariably to loss of territory and abridgment of rights. At last it led to war, and the final transition of nearly all the tribes to their present situation was accompanied by scenes of blood.

It is not possible to follow here the intricate pathway of the treaty system through the quarter century after 1850, for it is a long story. There were treaty after treaty, commission after commission, and a constant exercise of its best offices on the part of the government to reach some satisfactory result; but in vain. The life of a people, like that of an individual, cannot be extinguished without a struggle. Whether in this case the inevitable struggle was intensified by the procrastinating policy of the government may be an open question. It probably was, for it was preceded by years of bad faith, broken pledges, and cruel wrongs, until the hearts of this unhappy people were embittered, and they drew the sword in a spirit of hatred and revenge.

[Sidenote: THE INDIAN AND THE STEAMBOAT.]

Throughout the painful annals of the river tribes during the past century there was no more attractive feature of their relations with the whites than the means of transportation by which the paleface came to their country. The keelboat and the steamboat are a part of their life history. The steamboat in particular came to be what the buffalo had been--their principal resource for the necessities of life. It was a difficult rôle that it had to fill. To the Indian it was friend and foe, truth and falsehood, honor and shame, alike. It brought the early traders with their welcome merchandise, and alas! with their liquor and the smallpox. It brought the Commissioners to make treaties, and the annuities which those treaties guaranteed. It brought the Indian agent and the evils that followed in his train, and finally it brought the sword. When the Indian at last gave up the fight he and the steamboat abandoned the river together, and both are now strangers where once they made the entire valley teem with life.