Post by gregor on Aug 23, 2010 14:47:43 GMT -5
Hello from Germany!
I was asked to write an article on Sitting Bull by a little german magazine. Below the english translation (I hope I put it into the right words). Did I get the facts right? Or do you have some proposals for amendments?
Sitting Bull’s journey into war captivity
670 miles from Fort Buford to Fort Randall
July 19, 1881 – Fort Buford
On a comparatively frigid July Tuesday noon in the summer of 1881 a caravan of 35 Red River carts, accompanied by a few horse drawn travois and some 60 riders, slowly approached Fort Buford . The carts were packed with women, children and old people, and the paltry possessions of the travellers. At the head of the caravan rode Sitting Bull, the once powerful leader of a Lakota and Cheyenne alliance of nontreaty Indians. He led the last great Hunkpapa Lakota group to surrender into Fort Buford. On the parade ground Major David H. Brotherton , the commanding officer of Fort Buford, awaited this political leader of a victorious alliance of the battle at the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn River). After a short reception, it was agreed, that the official surrender should take place on the next morning. Then the Lakotas dismounted and most of them handed over their guns.
Métis Red River carts, 1870ies --- Major D.H. Brotherton , Crow King, Low Dog and interpreter
Hunger and cold eventually forced Sitting Bull, his family and fellow Hunkpapas – all in all 188 persons - to return from Canada to the United States. By then the buffalo had all but disappeared from the Great Plains. And the nomad way of life was about to disappear within the boundaries of the United States. On July, 20th Sitting Bull’s 7 years old son Crow Foot surrendered the chiefs Winchester – a Model 1866 .44 caliber carbine - to Major Brotherton. And Sitting Bull is reported to have said "I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle“. But he also said to the present officers, that he wished to regard them and the white race as friends.
In the next few days the Lakotas recovered from the hardships of the travel. Finally, they were restored to eat regularly and diseases could be treated. (Brotherton reported later that Sitting Bull was suffering from an eye infection . This infection was most likely the reason for wearing goggles in one of the first photographs).
July 29, 1881 – Fort Buford
Ten days after arriving at Buford, Sitting Bull and his band – 188 persons in all - boarded the “General Sherman”, a sternwheel wooden hull steamer, to be transferred to Fort Yates, the military post next to the Standing Rock Agency. This journey of 280 miles started on Friday noon and should take 3 to 5 days.
July, 31, 1881 – Mandan / Bismarck
It was a hot July Sunday at the twin cities Mandan and Bismarck. Hundreds of people crowded the Bismarck landing. All were waiting for one man: Sitting Bull, the „killer“ of „General“ Custer. At the landing Sitting Bull saw his first Locomotive close up. Hooked up behind the locomotive was the private coach of Ex-General Herman Haupt (1817-1905), the general manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad from 1881 to 1885. Haupt’s secretary invited the chief to board the car. But he couldn’t be coaxed to ride in it. In a government ambulance he rode to the Sheridan House, where he met some town officials and Edwin „Fish“ Allison, a government scout, who worked as interpreter. Afterwards the party was invited for dinner to the Merchants Hotel. The writer and former Indian Trader Judson E. Walker relates, that the Chief surprised his hosts, when he „…nearing the office desk, [took out] a little old worn pencil and [registered] his name in full“. Walker secured a facsimile by means of a piece of tracing-paper and published the autograph in fall 1881 in his book „Campaigns of General Custer“ (see picture further below).
General Herman Haupt
The Bismarck levee
It is said, that „Professor“ Orlando Scott Goff was the first, who attempted to induce the chief for taking a photograph in Bismarck. But this is highly unlikely. There are a variety of descriptions such as Sitting Bull looked on the day he arrived in Bismarck; for example, how his hair is braided and adorned . These descriptions – e.g. “Sitting Bull was in shabby Indian clothing, hatless, and without paint or feathers“ - do not match the appearance in the famous Goff photo. In this photographs the chief’s hair is thoroughly combed, the braids wrapped with otter pelt. He wears a feather and the shirt looks pretty clean. In all probability the 1st photograph of Sitting Bull was shot at Fort Yates a few days later .
Some sources report that (“Professor”) Herman Haupt drew a pencil sketch of Sitting Bull at the Bismarck levee, which he handed over to the chief for an autograph. But Sitting Bull tore it to pieces.
On his return to the landing Sitting Bull was joyously surprised to meet Zoe Lulu Harmon. Lulu was the daughter of Mathilda “Eagle Woman” Galpin-Picotte (1820 – 1888). Galpin-Picotte a highly respected woman accompanied in 1868 Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet to Four Horns and Sitting Bulls Hunkpapa camp. At that time the Jesuit missionary had been authorized to discuss the Fort Laramie Treaty with the northern Lakotas. Finally he succeeded in coaxing the Hunkpapa to sign the treaty at Fort Rice in 1868.
While the steamer was prepared to cast off, Sitting Bull discovered that his autograph and “Sitting Bull souvenirs” could make some Dollars. And so he devotedly penciled his autograph. This intermediate stop ended about six o’clock in the evening and the “Sherman” continued the passage downstream. In a little while they found a place to drop the anchor amid the Missouri, where they stayed for the night.
August 1, 1881 – Fort Yates
Monday noon - arriving with 188 people, Sitting Bull and his band was kept separate from the other Hunkpapa gathered at the agency. Surrounded by soldiers the Hunkpapas were led to a guarded flat, where they pitched camp. Only Gall and Running Antelope were allowed to welcome the newcomers.
A few days later, on August 2 or 3, a St. Paul reporter succeeded in interviewing the great chief. One Bull and Four Horns were present and “Fish” Allison once again acted as the interpreter. Also present were some more whites. In all likelyhood also the photographer Goff. The St. Paul Pioneer press published this interview on August 4, 1881. The New York Times on August 7, 1881. Maybe on the occasion of this interview or a few days later Orlando Goff shot the very first photographs of Sitting Bull.
1st photographs and the 1st published autograph
But Army officials still remained concerned that the famed Hunkpapa chief would use his influence to stir up trouble among the recently surrendered northern bands. Consequently, the military decided to transfer him and his band to Fort Randall to be held as prisoners of war. On September 6, Sitting Bull was informed that he and his Hunkpapa had to move again. Three days later they were forced to board the “Sherman” once again. A Hunkpapa woman killed her child and tried to commit suicide; One Bull, who tried to resist, was knocked down with a rifle butt as the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on September 11. And the New York Times published this information on September12.
September 17, 1881 - Fort Randall
There are conflicting informations regarding the day of the departure from Fort Yates as well as the day of the arrival of Sitting Bull at Fort Randall.
James McLaughlin, the new agent of the Standing Rock Agency, wrote in his book “My Friend the Indian” that Sitting Bull and 146 – other sources tell of 167 or 172 - followers had to leave “on the day he arrived at Fort Yates”, properly meaning the day he assumed the office as Standing Rock Agent: September 8, 1881. Robert Utley gives the date as September 9, and the New York Times as September 11.
In any case, loaded on a steamboat, Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa were sent downriver to Fort Randall. On September 17 or 18, Sitting Bull and 171 other Lakotas (or less) disembarked at Fort Randall. How would the soldiers treat them? To his surprise, the chief and his people were treated with the utmost respect. And Sitting Bull returned this amicability.
The next 20 months the Hunkpapa made a little grove on a plateau south-west of the fort their home. Here started Sitting Bull’s career as a world wide known celebrity. Already in October 1881 a young scholar called on the famous chief: the anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher , who had different meetings with him. And almost simultaneously, on October 24, the German Rudolph Cronau (1858-1930) arrived at Fort Randall. 25-year-old Cronau was an artist, writer and journalist, who reported for a German magazine from the U.S.A. During a walk through the fort, he met Sitting Bull, whom he portrayed in the following days. Cronau stayed for a week and both drew together some pictures.
Sitting Bull with his wife Four Robes and 3 of his children
Sitting Bull with his 2nd wife Seen-By-Her-Nation
Camp scene with One Bull and Prairie Chicken
In 1882 Bailey, Dix and Mead merchandised photographs of the Hunkpapa camp and its celebrities. Most likely these photographs were shot by Stanley J. Morrow and at least 24 views were later sold to Bailey, Dix and Mead.
And so the world beats a path to the chief’s teepee, until April 1883, when he finally was allowed to move his people back to Standing Rock Agency. On May 10, 1883 Sitting Bull and 152 people jumped off the steamer “W. J. Behan”, under the famous Missouri River steamboat pilot Grant P. Marsh (1834-1916), to meet new challenges. Gregor Lutz
Fort Yates and Missouri River in the background
Here are some sources. Unfortunately I wasn't able to produce my endnotes in the above text. But here they are , respectively the sources:
Endnotes
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 73
Hedren, Sitting Bull’s Surrender at Fort Buford, 1997, Fort Union Association, p. 3. See meteorological records in Fn.1
In 1866 Fort Buford was established in the heart of the Lakota buffalo hunting grounds. For this reason Sitting Bull harrassed the fort’s builders with a band of warriors from 1866 to 1868, and it was here where he finally surrendered in 1881.
Major D.H. Brotherton (1831 - 1889) assumed command of Ft Buford, Dakota Territory 20 July 1880 and relinquished command of that post 30 August, 1881.
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 74 - 75
LaDow, The Medicine Line: Life and Death on a North American Borderland, 2002, Prologue XIII f.
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 90
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, p 67
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, p. 90 &134
Walker, Dr. Henry R. Porter: the surgeon who survived Little Bighorn, 2007, p. 109 ff. and 201
The “scantily dressed chief [wore] smoked glass goggles. …[his] jet black hair reaching below his shoulders hanging in three braids and wearing a pair of blue leggings, a blue blanket a well-worn shirt ornamented on the sleeves with war paint (!), and moccasins”
Vestal, New Sources of Indian History 1850-1891, p. 263 and additional Hedren, Sitting Bull’s Surrender at Fort Buford, p. 21
This is also corroborated by Walker, p. 90
see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Haupt
Vestal, New Sources of Indian History 1850-1891, p. 263.
See NYT- Archive : query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=950DE5DB1730EE3ABC4F53DFBE66838A699FDE
See query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B01E3D6133EE433A25751C1A96F9C94609FD7CF
McLaughlin, My Friend the Indian, p. 98 f.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923), www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fletcher/acf_oct_27-29.htm
See www.philaprintshop.com/cronau.html
Calloway, Germans and Indians: fantasies, encounters, projections (& Gerd Gemünden, Susanne Zantop), 2002, p. 33 f.
I was asked to write an article on Sitting Bull by a little german magazine. Below the english translation (I hope I put it into the right words). Did I get the facts right? Or do you have some proposals for amendments?
Sitting Bull’s journey into war captivity
670 miles from Fort Buford to Fort Randall
July 19, 1881 – Fort Buford
On a comparatively frigid July Tuesday noon in the summer of 1881 a caravan of 35 Red River carts, accompanied by a few horse drawn travois and some 60 riders, slowly approached Fort Buford . The carts were packed with women, children and old people, and the paltry possessions of the travellers. At the head of the caravan rode Sitting Bull, the once powerful leader of a Lakota and Cheyenne alliance of nontreaty Indians. He led the last great Hunkpapa Lakota group to surrender into Fort Buford. On the parade ground Major David H. Brotherton , the commanding officer of Fort Buford, awaited this political leader of a victorious alliance of the battle at the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn River). After a short reception, it was agreed, that the official surrender should take place on the next morning. Then the Lakotas dismounted and most of them handed over their guns.
Métis Red River carts, 1870ies --- Major D.H. Brotherton , Crow King, Low Dog and interpreter
Hunger and cold eventually forced Sitting Bull, his family and fellow Hunkpapas – all in all 188 persons - to return from Canada to the United States. By then the buffalo had all but disappeared from the Great Plains. And the nomad way of life was about to disappear within the boundaries of the United States. On July, 20th Sitting Bull’s 7 years old son Crow Foot surrendered the chiefs Winchester – a Model 1866 .44 caliber carbine - to Major Brotherton. And Sitting Bull is reported to have said "I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle“. But he also said to the present officers, that he wished to regard them and the white race as friends.
In the next few days the Lakotas recovered from the hardships of the travel. Finally, they were restored to eat regularly and diseases could be treated. (Brotherton reported later that Sitting Bull was suffering from an eye infection . This infection was most likely the reason for wearing goggles in one of the first photographs).
July 29, 1881 – Fort Buford
Ten days after arriving at Buford, Sitting Bull and his band – 188 persons in all - boarded the “General Sherman”, a sternwheel wooden hull steamer, to be transferred to Fort Yates, the military post next to the Standing Rock Agency. This journey of 280 miles started on Friday noon and should take 3 to 5 days.
July, 31, 1881 – Mandan / Bismarck
It was a hot July Sunday at the twin cities Mandan and Bismarck. Hundreds of people crowded the Bismarck landing. All were waiting for one man: Sitting Bull, the „killer“ of „General“ Custer. At the landing Sitting Bull saw his first Locomotive close up. Hooked up behind the locomotive was the private coach of Ex-General Herman Haupt (1817-1905), the general manager of the Northern Pacific Railroad from 1881 to 1885. Haupt’s secretary invited the chief to board the car. But he couldn’t be coaxed to ride in it. In a government ambulance he rode to the Sheridan House, where he met some town officials and Edwin „Fish“ Allison, a government scout, who worked as interpreter. Afterwards the party was invited for dinner to the Merchants Hotel. The writer and former Indian Trader Judson E. Walker relates, that the Chief surprised his hosts, when he „…nearing the office desk, [took out] a little old worn pencil and [registered] his name in full“. Walker secured a facsimile by means of a piece of tracing-paper and published the autograph in fall 1881 in his book „Campaigns of General Custer“ (see picture further below).
General Herman Haupt
The Bismarck levee
It is said, that „Professor“ Orlando Scott Goff was the first, who attempted to induce the chief for taking a photograph in Bismarck. But this is highly unlikely. There are a variety of descriptions such as Sitting Bull looked on the day he arrived in Bismarck; for example, how his hair is braided and adorned . These descriptions – e.g. “Sitting Bull was in shabby Indian clothing, hatless, and without paint or feathers“ - do not match the appearance in the famous Goff photo. In this photographs the chief’s hair is thoroughly combed, the braids wrapped with otter pelt. He wears a feather and the shirt looks pretty clean. In all probability the 1st photograph of Sitting Bull was shot at Fort Yates a few days later .
Some sources report that (“Professor”) Herman Haupt drew a pencil sketch of Sitting Bull at the Bismarck levee, which he handed over to the chief for an autograph. But Sitting Bull tore it to pieces.
On his return to the landing Sitting Bull was joyously surprised to meet Zoe Lulu Harmon. Lulu was the daughter of Mathilda “Eagle Woman” Galpin-Picotte (1820 – 1888). Galpin-Picotte a highly respected woman accompanied in 1868 Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet to Four Horns and Sitting Bulls Hunkpapa camp. At that time the Jesuit missionary had been authorized to discuss the Fort Laramie Treaty with the northern Lakotas. Finally he succeeded in coaxing the Hunkpapa to sign the treaty at Fort Rice in 1868.
While the steamer was prepared to cast off, Sitting Bull discovered that his autograph and “Sitting Bull souvenirs” could make some Dollars. And so he devotedly penciled his autograph. This intermediate stop ended about six o’clock in the evening and the “Sherman” continued the passage downstream. In a little while they found a place to drop the anchor amid the Missouri, where they stayed for the night.
August 1, 1881 – Fort Yates
Monday noon - arriving with 188 people, Sitting Bull and his band was kept separate from the other Hunkpapa gathered at the agency. Surrounded by soldiers the Hunkpapas were led to a guarded flat, where they pitched camp. Only Gall and Running Antelope were allowed to welcome the newcomers.
A few days later, on August 2 or 3, a St. Paul reporter succeeded in interviewing the great chief. One Bull and Four Horns were present and “Fish” Allison once again acted as the interpreter. Also present were some more whites. In all likelyhood also the photographer Goff. The St. Paul Pioneer press published this interview on August 4, 1881. The New York Times on August 7, 1881. Maybe on the occasion of this interview or a few days later Orlando Goff shot the very first photographs of Sitting Bull.
1st photographs and the 1st published autograph
But Army officials still remained concerned that the famed Hunkpapa chief would use his influence to stir up trouble among the recently surrendered northern bands. Consequently, the military decided to transfer him and his band to Fort Randall to be held as prisoners of war. On September 6, Sitting Bull was informed that he and his Hunkpapa had to move again. Three days later they were forced to board the “Sherman” once again. A Hunkpapa woman killed her child and tried to commit suicide; One Bull, who tried to resist, was knocked down with a rifle butt as the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on September 11. And the New York Times published this information on September12.
September 17, 1881 - Fort Randall
There are conflicting informations regarding the day of the departure from Fort Yates as well as the day of the arrival of Sitting Bull at Fort Randall.
James McLaughlin, the new agent of the Standing Rock Agency, wrote in his book “My Friend the Indian” that Sitting Bull and 146 – other sources tell of 167 or 172 - followers had to leave “on the day he arrived at Fort Yates”, properly meaning the day he assumed the office as Standing Rock Agent: September 8, 1881. Robert Utley gives the date as September 9, and the New York Times as September 11.
In any case, loaded on a steamboat, Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa were sent downriver to Fort Randall. On September 17 or 18, Sitting Bull and 171 other Lakotas (or less) disembarked at Fort Randall. How would the soldiers treat them? To his surprise, the chief and his people were treated with the utmost respect. And Sitting Bull returned this amicability.
The next 20 months the Hunkpapa made a little grove on a plateau south-west of the fort their home. Here started Sitting Bull’s career as a world wide known celebrity. Already in October 1881 a young scholar called on the famous chief: the anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher , who had different meetings with him. And almost simultaneously, on October 24, the German Rudolph Cronau (1858-1930) arrived at Fort Randall. 25-year-old Cronau was an artist, writer and journalist, who reported for a German magazine from the U.S.A. During a walk through the fort, he met Sitting Bull, whom he portrayed in the following days. Cronau stayed for a week and both drew together some pictures.
Sitting Bull with his wife Four Robes and 3 of his children
Sitting Bull with his 2nd wife Seen-By-Her-Nation
Camp scene with One Bull and Prairie Chicken
In 1882 Bailey, Dix and Mead merchandised photographs of the Hunkpapa camp and its celebrities. Most likely these photographs were shot by Stanley J. Morrow and at least 24 views were later sold to Bailey, Dix and Mead.
And so the world beats a path to the chief’s teepee, until April 1883, when he finally was allowed to move his people back to Standing Rock Agency. On May 10, 1883 Sitting Bull and 152 people jumped off the steamer “W. J. Behan”, under the famous Missouri River steamboat pilot Grant P. Marsh (1834-1916), to meet new challenges. Gregor Lutz
Fort Yates and Missouri River in the background
Here are some sources. Unfortunately I wasn't able to produce my endnotes in the above text. But here they are , respectively the sources:
Endnotes
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 73
Hedren, Sitting Bull’s Surrender at Fort Buford, 1997, Fort Union Association, p. 3. See meteorological records in Fn.1
In 1866 Fort Buford was established in the heart of the Lakota buffalo hunting grounds. For this reason Sitting Bull harrassed the fort’s builders with a band of warriors from 1866 to 1868, and it was here where he finally surrendered in 1881.
Major D.H. Brotherton (1831 - 1889) assumed command of Ft Buford, Dakota Territory 20 July 1880 and relinquished command of that post 30 August, 1881.
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 74 - 75
LaDow, The Medicine Line: Life and Death on a North American Borderland, 2002, Prologue XIII f.
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, 1881, p. 90
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, p 67
Walker, Campaigns of General Custer in the North-West, p. 90 &134
Walker, Dr. Henry R. Porter: the surgeon who survived Little Bighorn, 2007, p. 109 ff. and 201
The “scantily dressed chief [wore] smoked glass goggles. …[his] jet black hair reaching below his shoulders hanging in three braids and wearing a pair of blue leggings, a blue blanket a well-worn shirt ornamented on the sleeves with war paint (!), and moccasins”
Vestal, New Sources of Indian History 1850-1891, p. 263 and additional Hedren, Sitting Bull’s Surrender at Fort Buford, p. 21
This is also corroborated by Walker, p. 90
see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Haupt
Vestal, New Sources of Indian History 1850-1891, p. 263.
See NYT- Archive : query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=950DE5DB1730EE3ABC4F53DFBE66838A699FDE
See query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B01E3D6133EE433A25751C1A96F9C94609FD7CF
McLaughlin, My Friend the Indian, p. 98 f.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923), www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/fletcher/acf_oct_27-29.htm
See www.philaprintshop.com/cronau.html
Calloway, Germans and Indians: fantasies, encounters, projections (& Gerd Gemünden, Susanne Zantop), 2002, p. 33 f.
