CROW CREEK AGENCY
1872
This Agency, designated on the maps as Fort Thompson, is the scene of Mr. Hinman's early trials in Dakota, when his Santees had been banished from Minnesota and thrown upon this inhospitable tract to starve. And starve they did, three hundred of them, including all the young children, perishing for want of food. The Reservation contains over 120,000 acres; but only a small part is fit for cultivation, and even on this the crops fail nearly every other year. A portion of the Sioux tribe of Yanktonais are gathered here, the remainder of the tribe being at Grand River and in its vicinity. The number of lodges on the Reservation at the present time is two hundred and twelve, or about 1,200 souls. They are, of course, fed by the Government; without their regular rations they would soon starve. The game has all been driven from this part of the country. Ten years ago the buffalo ranged on this side of the Missouri, but they are two and three hundred miles to the westward now. The rations are issued every seven days, each chief drawing the rations for his band, which is then divided and subdivided to the lodges. The head chiefs now here are: White Ghost, Weze, White Shield, Running Bear, White Bear, The-Man-to-whom-the-Bears-pray, and Stormy Goose.
The Agent at Crow Creek is Dr. H. F. Livingston, nominated to his post by our Board of Missions, to whom the oversight of these Indians was assigned two years ago. Nothing could be worse than the condition of this Agency and tribe when transferred to our care. The Government employes were living in open adultery with the Indian women, and rows of Agency houses were indecently named after the vile commerce carried on. The Agent bore an equally disgraceful appellation among the Indians, while whiskey "ruled the camp, the court, the grove." The scenes of debauchery-witnessed under the old Indian system were too vile to be related in print. But a great change has been effected in the short time that has elapsed since the new policy went into operation. The present Agent, by his activity and personal courage, has entirely broken up the infamous whiskey traffic, which threatened the utter ruin of the tribe at one time, though his life has been more than once in jeopardy at the hands of the border roughs.
Besides the care of the Yanktonais on this side of the river, the Agent at Crow Creek has the oversight of the Lower Brulés, another tribe of the Sioux, living on the other side, in the edge of the great Sioux Reservation. This tribe numbers about 2,200 souls, and is nearly equally divided under two-principal chiefs, Iron Nation and Little Pheasant. The former, with one hundred and ninety lodges, and several subordinate chiefs, of whom White Medicine Cow and Iron Eyes are the most influential, live near the Sub-agency, on the west bank of the river, ten miles below this place. Little Pheasant, with his fellow-chiefs, Medicine Bull, Standing Cloud and one or two others, with their bands, occupy a beautiful situation at the mouth of White River, twenty-three miles below the Sub-agency.
Dr. Livingston reports that eleven hundred of the three thousand five hundred Indians under his care planted, this year; an increase of one hundred and fifty on the number last year. When it is remembered that these are still wild, or "blanket Indians," only three or four years ago in the condition described; their capacity to learn and improve is shown in a marked manner. The number of acres planted this year is four hundred, against three hundred in 1871. Most of the land was sown in-corn, as it is the only crop at all certain. The Agent reports the health of the tribe good. About two-thirds of them rely upon the medicine of the palefaces in sickness, turning their backs upon their own "medicine men," which for wild Indians is an unusual circumstance. The women, as a class, are virtuous, but have made but little progress as yet in civilization. This people still prefer the tepee life, but are gradually yielding to the necessities of their altered state, and will soon, it is believed, settle down and adopt the log cabin of their brethren below on the river. The Government employes on the Reservation are all, it is believed, moral men. Nineteen Indians were mustered among the workmen last year, and received wages. They were principally employed as herders.
The day after our arrival being Sunday, we had Morning Prayer at ten o'clock in an old barracks, built of stockades, covered with the mud roof of the country, Mr. Hinman reading the Service and preaching in English. Most of the Government employes were present. In the afternoon the chiefs, head soldiers, and leading men of the tribe met us in council in the same place. They came in gala costume, and no two were dressed alike. Buckskin shirts richly embroidered with porcupine quills cut in thin strips and colored, and fringed with long tassels of human hair, alleged to be parts of scalp locks taken in battle; colored cloth leggings, fastened to the waist, heavily worked with beads in fantastic patterns; and red, blue, or black blankets, with a broad band of white bead-work sewed across the centre, were the styles most in favor. The hair of each warrior was parted in the middle, front and back, and gathered in two long locks, bound around with strips of choice fur and dropped down in front, one over each shoulder; only the hair of the crown being exempt from this treatment. This, being the scalp lock, the red man's badge of manhood and pledge of valor, is carefully taken up from a space about twice the size of a silver dollar and braided and plumed with eagles' feathers, in accordance with the rank and prowess of the wearer, each feather, usually denoting a scalp taken. Faces, and seams of the hair, and bodies (where the bodies are exposed) striped with yellow and red, or, sometimes, white paint, complete the picture of the average Indian toilet for State occasions. The Council was convened for the purpose of presenting the subject of schools and churches, and the room was filled with braves, who listened approvingly to Mr. Welsh's remarks. When he referred to a former visit and his meeting with Bone Necklace (an influential chief, since deceased), and the wish that the old man expressed, that he might live to see GOD'S ministers from the good white men settled among his people, a silence fell upon the circle of chiefs, and soldiers, and presently from without we heard the wail of his widow, who was among the squaws gathered around the doors. The mourner's cry was continued at intervals until late in the night.
But we soon found our friends were not disposed to talk much of schools and churches until we had answered some not unreasonable inquiries in regard to the intentions of the Government in allowing the Northern Pacific Railroad to be built, and the telegraph to pass through their Reservation, and in withholding from them the cattle and other supplies promised by the last treaty. In answering these questions, we could, of course, only speak from our knowledge of the views and wishes of the Department in Washington, and these were explained to them, as also the probable action which would be taken on the subject of the Northern Pacific Railroad. The principal speakers were White Ghost (Bone Necklace's son), Weze, who made his maiden speech on this occasion, Fool Dog, a chief of the Fool Band, one of the most intelligent and devoted friends of the whites on the river, and White Bear. Weze said:
''As when men meet a relative, so have we been made happy by seeing you. You came to our fathers and made friends of them, and we wish to be your friends. We make all our wishes known to our father (the Agent) and the soldier who lives in the Fort on the hill (Gen. Stanley), as you told us to do. Why have our words not been heard? We think it strange that you should speak of schools when we asked for other things first. We cannot eat schools and churches."
Another said: ''Though I am small, I will tell you of things that do not please me. You promised us, if we gave up hunting the buffalo and lived upon these lands, we should have food to eat. We do not find it so. We cat up our seven days' food in two days. [How! How! from all the Indians.] What do you think of one small pan of flour for five persons?"
In their hungry and disquieted state we forbore to speak further of schools. We afterwards found the insufficiency of their rations mainly caused by their own improvidence. Mr. Hinman addressed them in their own language. He said they had made him ashamed before his white friends. They had invited him to come and make them like the Santees, and now that he had come with these friends to tell them of things to make their hearts glad they had talked only of their stomachs.
"When the Santees were here they had nothing to eat, and many of them died for want of food; but they did not throw away their schools and churches. To-morrow we shall go away, and take these things to your brethren, the wild Tetons. If your wise men are not all dead, you will still desire to have these schools and churches for which your fathers asked." Mr. H. 's words produced a deep impression, and they afterwards assured us that they expected these things, but they desired us to use our influence to procure additional rations. Mr. Welsh said, in our country it was the custom not to expect a feast of friends who came to see us; but rather to offer them hospitalities. In the evening our party was invited to a feast in the tepee of "The-Man-to-whom-the-Bears-pray." Our bill of fare was a mixture of French and Indian--black coffee and boiled dog. We sat on a buffalo robe spread on the ground, with the two dishes served in two camp-kettles before us, and were each furnished with two tins, one for meat and the other for drink, using our pocket-knives for table-cutlery. If our repast was not a hearty one, it was certainly memorable to the three unflinching white braves who partook of it. The red man esteems dog-flesh a delicate and savory dish.
Was it to excuse their weakness or to honestly confess their mistaken prejudice, that our dog-feasters afterwards averred their preference for it to the pork of our Dakota white ranches?
The most interesting event of this day, however, was the Service in the Dakota tongue in the afternoon. Mr. Hinman read the Evening Prayer in that language, in the presence of a goodly assemblage of chiefs and young men. The hymns were sung in Dakota, by members of our party. It was the first time the large majority of these Indians had attended the worship of GOD, and they listened with unfeigned wonder, as well as with awe and reverence, to the prayers and hymns and preached word. It was noticeable that one of the chiefs who lighted his pipe, and after a whiff or two passed it to his neighbor, as is the all-prevailing custom, found no one to smoke with him, though his calumet went half around the circle. It came back to him extinguished, and he did not relight it. The child of a Santee man and wife, who are in the employ of the Agent, was baptized during the Service.
It is but due to these Yanktonais Sioux to state here, that on our return to Crow Creek we found a much better state of feeling in regard to our proposed Mission work among them than at our first visit. Though the uneasiness in regard to the intentions of the Government, and the effect of the completion of the Pacific Railroad through their country, had not passed off, they no longer opposed the idea of schools, and promised to send their children and young men to be taught. They sought interviews with us at all hours, even late in the evening, and were very much grieved because, in an open council held jointly with their Brulé brethren from over the river, Mr. W. announced to them that he had heard that they were unwilling to till the land and learn to live by agriculture. They very indignantly repelled this accusation, and were very urgent to know who had told him this. White Ghost said to Mr. W.:
"Koda (friend), what you have said makes me laugh. Our fathers told us to hold the soil tight, and we have held it tight. Every one of us wishes to dwell on the land and do well with it. Our fathers began to plant it, and we have been told it will make us strong to work our fields. Without cattle and tools it makes us weak. Let me tell you something. I think the whites do not work their own land, for they come here to steal ours."
"The-Pipe Cleaner" complained that there were "too many papers scattered up the river, that were full of holes" [containing false reports]. Another said: ''You ought not to have spoken as you have done [about the failure to work the lands], because your words are as medicine, and may have discouraged many here. Our great father [the President] told us to plant the lands, and we are doing it as well as we can with the tools and oxen we have. But we are dying of weakness and starvation. You can see the graves of our people like gopher hills around you." Medicine Bull said: "We are filled up with promises. Your words keep us quiet. Tell our great father we wish to live."
Whitestone: "I am a chief of the Two Kettle band. I have helped the whites, and there is no white blood on my hands, nor the mark of stolen horses. I have done no bad act. I think it is for this that I am a chief. I have been to Santee and seen what you (Mr. H.) have done there. I put on the white man's dress, that I, too, might be like one of them. When I returned to my people, they laughed at me, and I put on my Indian dress again. I was a scout for your General [Harney] and gave my body to the whites, but you see I am poor still. I am told there is no place for me among my own people, so I remain here."
Lazy Bear: [To Mr. H.] "Your good wishes make my heart glad. I am no chief, nor soldier, and I talk as I please. The words of others pass me by, and I laugh at them. What you have said [about schools and churches] may not suit others here, but it pleases me. I am trying to get a white heart and keep the words of my father."
It was resolved before we left Crow Creek to take immediate measures to open a school at the Agency, as there will be a large number of children living within a, short distance of the post this fall and winter. The Agent will be able to provide temporary accommodations for the school, and board for the teacher (a Sister from the Potter Memorial House, Phila.), without the erection of new quarters. All trace of opposition or indifference to our plans had disappeared from the conversation of the chiefs and leading men. They came privately to Mr. Hinman and the Agent, and renewed not only their desire for schools, but their request that the houses which they had objected to might now be built. They confessed that their seeming opposition in council was only for political ends in their tribe, and a device to get us to procure the material aid of which they stand in need. They were told that as fast as they developed a will for steady industry, and were able to use and take care of the cattle and utensils required, we would ask the Government to supply them.