Assignment 13

Assignment 13 Chp 12
Only four years after the treaty of 1868 had been signed there were rumors of gold in the black hills. In 1868, the Black Hills were considered worthless land, but now there were white men flocking there from all over in search of their fortunes. The land was supposed to be forever Indian Territory as stated in the treaty; however, with little regard given by the army to keep it that way, the Indians were angry at white men intruding in their country. By 1874, there were white prospectors clamoring into the Black Hills at a remarkable rate through the thieves road, and whenever the Indians encountered them they would chase them out or kill them. An expedition lead by General George Armstrong Custer was lead from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the Black Hills with more than a thousand pony soldiers. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail made protests to Washington officials in hopes of gaining some army help in keeping the white men out, but all the officials wanted were for the Sioux to give up their rights to the Black Hills.
A commission council was held on September 20, 1875 in order to convince the tribes to give up their rights to their lands. The council did not go as planned for either party. Neither party got what they wished as the whites wanted rights to the lands, and the Indians did not want to give up their right or sell the rights to the lands. Executive orders were signed by President Grant stating that Indians in unceded territory had to report to a reservation or agency within sixty days, and if they hadn’t moved by then, they were all targets to be hunted down or destroyed. After this, the US government decided to take military force and General Sheridan ordered generals Crook and Terry to begin making preparations for military operations heading towards the Powder River country. Something was happening on the Northern Plains however, the Cheyennes and Sioux were gathering in the spring along the Powder River and thousands streamed north to the buffalo ranges. By June, more than a thousand lodges had been established in Sitting Bull’s camp. More than 2000 warriors and close to 7,000 Cheyennes, Sioux, and Arapahos gathered together.
The tribes had gathered together in the valley of the Rosebud for the Sundance festival. A great vision came to Sitting Bull during the festival of white soldiers coming into their camp and each one falling sideways as the locusts do when they die. After Sundance was over, Lakota scouts came warning the village that soldiers were approaching camp from the south. June 16, 1876 Soldiers were moving along valley of Rosebud and one morning Crook’s men were having coffee when Crazy Horse and his men came riding in for a full frontal attack. The battle of the Rosebud raged all day until nightfall when Crook had lost 84 men and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. Crook retreated with his men to Goose Creek in order to await further reinforcements.
Sitting Bull did not believe his vision had been completely realized with the Battle of the Rosebud, and the chiefs decided to move the village west to the valley of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn). By this time, the groups of Indians had multiplied to no less than 10,000 people and possibly 3,000 to 4,000 warriors. July 25, Custer’s expedition had begun filtering into the valley of the Little Bighorn. The huge village was alerted by dust rising when the riders road in, but the warriors were able to get most of the women and children out of the way before the battled ensued and warriors sprang into action. As much of the battle wore on, Reno’s command was quickly repelled and they retreated up a hill until the next day. However, Crazy Horse led the attack towards Custer’s formation and they left no man alive and took no prisoners. Custer was killed during the battle, but no one knows exactly who killed him. After news of Custer and his men being killed by the Sioux, outrage struck the whites and what had been thought of as a battle was now thought of as a massacre. Each reservation was overtaken by military power and the Indians were treated as prisoners of war. While the Indians still roaming the Plains were hunted down and either killed or made to give in to reservation life. Sitting Bull took his people north to Canada and Crazy Horse retreated until he could no longer run anymore. He was later murdered by a young private while resisting arrest. The Powder River country and the Black Hills were also relinquished by the Indians in order to prevent starvation due to the governments tactics to cut off their rations altogether if they did not agree.


Assignment 13 Chp 14
In 1877 when Crazy Horse brought his Ogala Sioux to surrender at Fort Robinson, various bands of Cheyennes joined him that winter in his submission. The Cheyennes expected to live with the Sioux in accordance with the treaty of 1868 which both Dull Knife and Spotted Tail had signed. However, they were informed by the Indian Bureau that they could either live on the Sioux reservation or another reservation to the south with the Southern Cheyennes. The Cheyennese decided to go south, but they were under the notion that if they didn’t like it there, they could return north. As they journeyed south, they noticed the Plains were changing and filling up with railroads, fences, buildings, and towns. There were 972 Cheyennes who started from Fort Robinson and after travelling for a hundred sleeps 937 of them reached Fort Reno on the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation.
Once there the Northern Cheyennes learned that there was not going to be enough rations to allow them to live there. Little Wolf tried to talk to the agent in order for them to return north, but it was too late. The agent told them there would be more food available soon with a group of Texas Longhorns being driven up from the south. In the late summer, the northerners began falling sick with shaking chills, hot fevers, and an aching of bones. The longhorns had been scrawny and their meat was tough, and they were getting malaria from the swarms of mosquitoes. Little Wolf and Dull Knife complained to the soldier chief of Fort Reno until an inspector was sent and he found they were not getting enough supplies to prevent starvation. They struggled with the agent until they were finally given permission to hunt, but all the buffalo had been turned into piles of bones by all the overzealous white hunters. Managing to kill a few coyotes, the northern ate them and were forced to eat all their dogs to supplement the agency’s meager rations. During the warmer months, mosquitoes swarmed the reservation and more people got sick, as well as a measles epidemic striking the children. So many died that the Cheyennes decided they couldn’t stay any longer and pleaded with spokespeople from Washington to go home.
In August, a division came between the chiefs with Standing Elk, Turkey Leg, and some others, who were afraid and decided to remain on the reservation, while Little Wolf, Dull Knife, Wild Hog, and Left Hand moved their bands further away from the others in order to plan for an escape. September rolled around and the latter left before dawn leaving behind their standing tepees with 297 men, women, and children heading northward. Along the way, they were hunted by nearly 10,000 soldiers and 3,000 white men who were ranchers, cowboys, etc. Six weeks into the journey, nearly 34 were missing, and most of those had died during the clashes with white men along the way. Dull Knife and Little Wolf had a parting of ways where those who wished to go north followed Little Wolf, and those who couldn’t go any farther followed Dull Knife to find Red Cloud’s Agency. Dull Knife’s groups were intercepted on October 23, and were taken to Fort Robinson to await further instruction on where the Indians should be taken. While at the fort they received decent treatment until a new commander was instated, and then they were more determined than ever to get permission to head north towards Red Cloud’s agency. However, their pleas were denied by Washington and they were told they must return to their former reservation in the south.
Dull Knife and his group decided they would rather attempt an escape and die trying than return to the south and die of starvation and disease. Thus they gathered the gun parts they had dismantled before coming to the fort and reassembled their few guns to have a fighting chance. Shots were fired around 9:45pm and the fighting began. The next morning, the soldiers herded 65 Cheyenne prisoners, 23 of them wounded, back into Fort Robinson. Only 32 people remained free and alive and were moving north, however, they were being pursued by four cavalry and tons of artillery. Six others managed to hide among some rocks close to the fort. Of the 32 Cheyennes heading north, they were intercepted and fired upon until there were only nine survivors. Dull Knife and his family were among the six hiding in the hills and they made their way north to Pine Ridge in January where they became prisoners on Red Cloud’s reservation.
Little Wolf and his followers spent the winter in dug out ditches along the frozen banks of Lost Chokecherry Creek, but managed to move northward once the weather warmed some. Along Box Elder Creek, they met with Two Moons and five other Northern Cheyennes who were now working for Bluecoats as scouts. Two Moons arranged a meeting with White Hat, an old friend of the Northern Cheyennes, and he convinced them to disarm and give up their ponies in order to live at Fort Keogh. From there, the Northern Cheyennes lost all their identity. Many warriors enlisted as scouts for the Bluecoats and the other Cheyennes drank whiskey from boredom and despair until the old way and leadership was lost.


Assignment 13 Chp 15
Unlike most of the Plains Indians, the tribe of the Poncas along the Niobrara River was a peaceful tribe that raised corn and kept vegetable gardens. They were prosperous and owned many horses and were constantly defending their horses and lands from the Sioux to the north. In 1858 when government officials were travelling through the west, the Poncas gave up part of their territory for promises by the officials to guarantee them protection and a permanent home on the Niobrara. However, in 1876, following the Custer defeat, Congress decided to include the Poncas in the band of unceded Indian Territory and therefore needed to be moved onto reservations. The Poncas, unlike the others, had nothing to do with the Custer fight and had never been hostile or engaged in fighting with the United States. Ponca chiefs tried to reason with an agent sent from Washington to order them to move or to come to Washington to hold a council. Some of the chiefs elected to go to Washington and tell the Great Father their problems and to have them remedied. These chiefs were tricked instead, and were sent to see the Indian Territory, but they had no desire to live there and the agent decided he would neither take them to Washington nor take them home. He abandoned the chiefs in the middle of Indian Territory with nothing more than a few dollars and the clothes on their backs. They managed with the help of some of their allies to get some shelter and food along the way, but had to travel five hundred miles on foot back to their home land.
Once there, the chiefs were told they must move and this time the agents were helped by military force. Having no other choice, nearly 170 people left their lands to head for Indian Territory, while the chiefs and many more remained behind trying to talk through councils. Eventually, their time ran out and they too were forced by threat of soldiers to move. The journey was hard and many suffered and died along the way. Upon arrival at the reservation, the Indians and even their Agent Howard realized there would be no way for them to survive given the conditions of the land and the climate. In the spring of 1878, Washington officials decided to give them a new reservation in which the land was good, but in the summer more were sick again. During this time, the oldest son of Standing Bear, the head chief, died and his last wish was for his father to return him to his homeland burial ground. Standing Bear and the rest of his clan, sixty-six people in the burial party, journeyed home to bury his son. Big Eyes Schurz demanded the return of Standing Bear and through agents at other reservations had Standing Bear and his other Poncas arrested. When Crook, the same Three Stars that had been fighting Indians for nearly three decades, saw the pitiable condition of the Poncas, he took pity on them and delayed orders to have them sent back to the reservation.
With Crook’s help, the Poncas received a lot of sympathy from churches and other groups and eventually were in the process of a civil trial. In 1879, a civil rights case known as Standing Bear vs Crook took place. The United States attorney stated that Standing Bear and his people were subject to the rules and regulations which the government made for tribal Indians; however, Webster and Poppleton replied that Standing Bear and any other tribal Indian had the right to separate themselves from their tribes and live under protection of United States laws like any other citizens. Judge Dundy of the case ruled that an Indian was a “person” within the meaning of the habeas corpus act, that the right of expatriation was a natural, inherent, and inalienable right of the Indian as well as the white race, and that in time of peace no authority, civil or military, existed for transporting Indians from one section of the country to another without the consent of the Indians or to confine them to any particular reservation against their will. The judge ordered that Standing Bear and his Poncas be released from custody and the audience in the courtroom rose to their feet and cheered, even General Crook came over to congratulate them. Accordingly, the United States government assigned Standing Bear and his band a few hundred acres of unclaimed land along the Niobrara and they were soon back home.
The same could not be said for the remaining Poncas. Agents of the Indian Bureau saw the case as a huge defeat and could mean big trouble for all other Indians and their reservations and sought to keep the system the way it was. Thus, they enlisted the help of Sherman and Sheridan through a system of underwriting the new law. Big Snake, Standing Bear’s, brother was a good man and had done no wrong, but chose to test the new law and was arrested and brought back to the reservation. He was eventually arrested and killed even though he had done no wrong. As for the other Poncas, they were forced to remain on the reservation along the Arkansas and could not return home even though the new law said they would be able to. The white man’s law still did not apply to them.