Summary of Sitting Bull's interview, July 1879

[carlo]

Many of you might be familiar with the fact that Sitting Bull was interviewed in June 1879, while he was exiled in Canada. The interviewer was Stanley Huntley, a reporter for the Chicago Daily Tribune at the time. The lengthy interview was published in the Chicago Daily Tribune of July 5, 1879, and has been used as source material for most if not all of the works on the Hunkpapa chief in recent times.

When I was researching the time when Sitting Bull was in Canada, I came across the Daily Free Press (Eau Claire, WI) of July 7, 1879, which summarized the Huntley interview. I though it would be worthwhile to share the transcript with you here. Some sections can be a bit difficult to follow, but what we see is an interesting insight into the view of Sitting Bull and his headmen on topics like the origin of the Great Sioux War, the fighting ability of the U.S. Army, Custer, reservation life, farming, who is behind Crow agression, and so forth. All spelling mistakes are original.

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SITTING BULL.

INTERVIEW IN HIS TENT.

Chicago, July 5.

Stanley Huntley, one of the Tribune staff, has succeeded in interviewing Sitting Bull, and this morning the Tribune publishes an eight-column account of the interview, dated Sitting Bull's Camp, June 16, via Wood Mountain June 18. via Fort Buford July 3. The following is the substance of the interview: I found Sitting Bull in the Milk river country, twelve miles south of Wood Mountain, forty-five miles south of the line, 125 miles cast of Fort Assinniboine, and about eighty miles northwest of Wolf Point agency. This would bring it about sixty miles north of the Missouri river. He was in the heart of the buffalo country as lies north of the Missouri, and hunting with indifferent success. He knows he is ON DANGEROUS SOIL.
After weeks of toil and travel I found him where he is liable to an attack at any time, and he is naturally suspicious of all white men who enter his camp. He faces me; is at the head of his army here. Stretching away to the west a procession of splendor, for his camp is moving, and for three miles stretches in a line a mile wide, and made up all the paraphernalia that delights the savage. There is something remarkable in his face. It is rather broad and fleshy, but a determined line around the mouth destroys the impression of flabbiness. His eyes are wide, black, and piercing. The upper lids are heavy and the outer corners hang over the eyes as if his brain had escaped into them. His shoulders and chest are broad and strong, his arms muscular, and his hands awfully dirty. He is dressed in blue leggins, beaded moccasins, a shirt made of the same material, figured like patterns of Broche shawls, and his blanket bound lightly around his Waist, for the afternoon is intolerably hot and clear. The crowd fall back a little.
"How Colonel,” and as he speaks extends his hand; "Took ta nea can pa took ta nea wa ga tich ar an torgua an?" Well, comrade, where are you from? Where are you going? What do you want? From Wood Mountain, and I am going over to the half-breed camp on Milk river. I am glad I have met you, and if you arc encamped here to-morrow, as I go back I will stay and talk with you. Next day Mr. Huntly succeeded in interviewing Sitting Bull, who said in reply to many questions put to him, substantially as follows: ''I hate the Americans because I and my people have always been deceived by them. They asked us to go to the Gift House reservation and said they would care for us. Many of my people went there. Then their rations were short. It is not many years. Your people said they would give us the country of the Black Hills. They said our children should have it and own it for them; that it should be our hunting ground. As soon as they found there was shining dust there they drove us from it and told us that the country did not belong to us. Such actions make me so that I cannot believe them; we went away from there peacefully though we knew it was rich with gold, for sake of peace, and took our wives and children. The American people SENT LONG HAIR
(Custer) to follow us. Do you know of anything we did to bring Long Hair upon us at Little Big Horn river? No, you don't. Do your people know of anything we did? No, they don't. We were a peaceable camp, hunting for meat to feed our families. What stories did your people hear that they sent Long Hair upon us? If you were ever told that we were hostile, it is a lie. We have attacked nothing but buffalo. It is for that I dislike the Americans.
Do you want war with the Americans? No, I do not want war with them. I am tired of war. I am tired of blood. I went with my people into the white mother's country so as to get away from war. If I had wanted to fight I would have stayed in my own country.
You have come back to your own country and you have come for war? Your warriors cover the prairies? We have come to hunt buffalo. The buffaloes have come down here and we followed them. We want meat. Our women and children are hungry. There is nothing for us but wild game. We have not come to injure the while man or his property. We were forced to come.
Have you been told that if you crossed the line, the long knives would attack you? We have been told so; but we have come. If the long knives will let us hunt in peace we will go back as soon as we have got meat. We don't want the white man's blood. We don't want his horses. We want something to eat, and we must go where it is.
What, then, if the long knives come? We will avoid them if we can. If we cannot we will fight.
So you think you can defeat the long knives? There was a general laugh at the absurdity of the question, but the chief did not change countenance. He answered quietly, but with an air of firm conviction, “In those teepes there, we have old women whom we have thrown aside; I will place them on horses and they can whip all the long knives your people can send, if they are like those Long Hair had. His people could neither ride a horse nor shoot a gun. (There was a fierce grunt of assent all around the ring.)
Then why did you flee from them? Why did you not remain and hold your country?
We are tired of war. The Crows are fighting. I tried to make peace with them, for the red men should be as one; but while I was trying to make peace with them their young men stole my horses. Your people sent them to do it. Your people are persecuting me.”
“You are mistaken. My people are willing to have you come back to your country. They will set apart a portion of it for you and protect you. They will feed you and your families. They will be your friends.”
“I will not go to the gift-house. I am a hunter and will hunt as long as there is wild game on the prairie. I do not want to live in a house.”
“Stories have come from your camp that you wanted to go to the gift house. You say you will not and never wanted to?”
“There were rascals in my camp. They went to the gift house, and there they used my name. They said I sent them to find out on what condition I would go to the gift house. I never sent them. I never wanted to go to the gift house, and I never will. They want my people to farm. I will never farm. Then they would want me to wear pantaloons and cut my hair short.”
“The buffalo are getting scarce; they are traveling south beyond the Missouri. When they are gone, what will your people do for food?” I asked him. “You must not think the Great Spirit doesn't watch over us as closely as he watches over you. If he put me on these prairies, and permitted me to thrive with them, I know he is watching me, and he will never leave me to starve. When the buffalo are gone he will give us something else.” This virtually ENDED THE INTERVIEW,
and Sitting Bull took out his pipe and the enterprising Mr. Huntly handed him a match. Then all the other chiefs delivered short addresses and made a full statement of the situation as looked upon from their standpoint, which is they have never desired war with the whites and have only acted on the defensive. The latter assertion however, usually being qualified by the significant admission that some of their young men were wild and bad and could not be restrained but it is evident what the Indian question is as far as these 4,000 hostile Sioux are concerned; they will not tolerate the idea of going on a reservation and supporting themselves by tilling the soil. They despise the lifts of a farmer, involving as it does the cutting of their hair and wearing of pantaloons, and are in no humor to come to any terms which shall restrict their privilege to carry guns, and hunt, and to make war whenever they feel inclined. They hate the Americans and are attached to their white mother, the queen of England, and the best aspect of the case is their apparent inclination to return and live on British soil.
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[gregor]

Here a transcription of an article from the Mexico Weekly Ledger of Nov. 1, 1877 (Thursday, Page 4) regarding Sitting Bull.
It is reported about Sitting Bull's meeting with General Terry at Fort Walsh on October 18, 1877. In addition, about Major Walsh's efforts to move Sitting Bull to the meeting. In particular, the pre-reporting shows SB expectations of the meeting and his humor.
In this report are first tendencies to downgrade Sitting Bull's position within the Northern Alliance.

Mexico Weekly Ledger, 01 Nov 1877, Thu, Page 4

SITTING BULL

Fort Walsh, Cypress Hills, British Northwest Territories, Oct. 14, via Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Since Joseph's surrender affairs have been taking a more peaceful turn. The three or four hundred young Nez Perce warriors who did not surrender with him have scattered into bands, and are dodging along the frontier. Eighty of them joined Sitting Bull's force on the 10th, and thirty or forty more are reported about the Three Buttes They are completely demoralized and unable even to attempt to carry on the struggle their old chief waged so bitterly and long.

Oh the 9th [Oct.] Maj. Walsh returned from Sitting Bull's camp at Wood mountain with the news that the Sioux chief would come here to see the American commissioners if Col McLeod really desired him to do so. On being told that McLeod and the Canadian government were most anxious for him to meet the commissioner, because Mr. Mills, the minister of the interior, had promised the president that the police would bring such an interview about, Sitting Bull said he would be happy to meet the commissioners just to oblige the police, not that he thought a treaty could come of it or that the meeting would result in his return to the states.

He added that he would come to Fort Walsh as the guest of the police, for he knew that the police would in that case fight, if necessary, to protect him from treachery on the part of the commissioners. Maj. Walsh assured him that the commissioners were coming in good faith direct from the president; that they were not mere Indian agents, ant that neither the president nor his people would dream of trapping the Sioux under the circumstances. The Indian answered with much vehemence that he had no confidence in the president or in any of the subordinate American officials, who were wont to resort to traps Indians would scorn to employ, and whose word of honor was often given merely to deceive and betray.

He hated the Americans because their ‘Ka-wee-mee-np-wahiata ' (general principle or spirit) was bad ; because they made treaties but .to break them; because their government aided dishonest officials' to swindle and maltreat his people, and because their intention was to kill off the Indian by inhuman wars, starvation and pillage. His hatred of them no soft words or pretty promises could remove; nay- and here he dropped Sioux and spoke fiercely in excellent Northwest French - he would curse them while he lived, and hoped himself to be cursed if he did without striking back.
Walsh assured Sitting Bull that whatever might be said of the manner in which his people had been treated by the American, the commissioners would not dare to set a trap for him while he was on British soil. Here Ki-we-nee-pa-me-troo, the Man-with-Strong-Limbs, one of Sitting Bull's headmen, spoke up and said that although they did not suppose that the police would permit them to be attacked, would they be allowed to bring say 300 warriors to the conference. Maj. Walsh said if they did that the commissioners might dread treachery. Sitting Bull then asked what force the commissioners would have. Walsh said he did not know exactly, but he had urged the commissioners by letter not to bring a heavy escort. Perhaps they would have 100 cavalry. On the other hand there would be no police ready to take the part of the Sioux, in case the commissioners attacked them. On this Sitting Bull agreed to come to the conference with only his headmen, thirty in number. These, he' said, would in no sense be an escort, they were his advisers, and their presence was necessary to him. Walsh then asked him where he would put his force the interval. Sitting Bull said he would move them westward from Wood Mountain, so that they might be near at hand when he accepted the commissioners terms and surrendered them to the troops for execution. This was said laughingly, and his headmen standing by laughed.

After further parleying, Sitting Bull pledged his word to meet the commissioners at this post, he to be accompanied by his headmen only, and his force to be at least sixty miles away from the opening until two days after the close of the interview. Walsh in turn pledged the queen's word to keep the Indians safe from harm before, during and after the meeting, and to treat them as the Queen's guests, supply them with one of the queen's interpreters, and see that the commissioners took no unfair advantage of them. Sitting Bull promised to reach here not later than the 13th inst.
The westward movement of the Sioux force has accordingly begun. Breaking camp at Wood Mountain on the 11th, they pursued the Trader's road, and are now a little over eighty miles east of here. Col. McLeod has dispatched police to show them their new camp, sixty miles southeast of here in the Dead-Horse valley, through which runs a small tributary of the East Fork. Provisions will be supplied them, several dog-teams having already left here with pork, tobacco and molasses. Should the conference break up without any result being reached - and it is thought Sitting Bull will not leave here this winter – then the police will help them to move camp either back to Wood mountain or to the north of these hills, where the land is somewhat better sheltered.

The commissioners are expected on the 18th. They are being escorted by two or three troops of the Second cavalry. The conference will be attended by many loafing Indians from the Canadian tribes, who expect to see tobacco flying in abundance on an occasion so important. Sitting Bull's force, by actual count, consists of 1,340 souls. Traders are circulating a story to the effect that he intends to trap the commissioners and police alike and then proclaim a general Indian rising, but this is utterly baseless. The police will take every precaution against a surprise and are satisfied that the Sioux chief is sincere in meeting the commissioners, "just to oblige the queen," as he says.
The weather is extremely cold, ranging from 20° above zero, as high as 30° at noon, and down to zero almost every night, with violent snow blasts and piercing winds. The police are very anxious to get rid of Sitting Bull, and will use all fair means of persuasion to induce him to accept the commissioners terms.

Ft. Walsh, Northwest Territory, Oct. 18, Via Helena, M. T., Oct. 21, 1877.
The United States commission sent out by the government to find and treat for peace and good will with the Sioux thief, Sitting Bull, has at length succeeded in coming face to face with the redoubtable Indian chieftain, and have failed to bring him to any terms. In short, the committee has met and Sitting Bull has dismissed it abruptly and disdainfully. The expedition has failed in its purpose and the Sioux question is as far from a satisfactory solution as when Gen. Terry and his brother commissioners first set out on their long and tedious journey to the North-west. It is sad to be compelled to thus preface my dispatch, but truth compels the admission.

AN IMPLACABLE FOE
Sitting Bull, it must be remembered, is the one leader among the hostile Sioux who after the retreat of 1868 and the pacification of the great Chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, with their bands, held out implacably against the whites and kept his people to their original habits of life in the wilderness. He was never once known since that time to express a solitary friendly word toward the Americans. He regarded them from first to last with an enmity so deep and terrible that it was fed by every effort on their part to conciliate him. It was fanned into flames of hatred by the treacherous violation of treaties with other bands of Sioux by the United States government.

SITTING BULL'S DISRESPECT FOR THE GREAT FATHER
The great father, a name to conjure with in the cases of other chiefs, was a very inferior being to Sitting Bull in his own estimation. In the course of his long career he had never felt the' great father's power, and did not believe in it. In many a battle he had seen feeble and disjointed bands of United States soldiers vanquished with apparent ease by his own people.' He had never known defeat in war, and began to consider himself invincible. The very last achievement of his forces before he retired to Canada for rest and recuperation was the utter overwhelming of Custer and the slaughter of his troops.
EFFECT OF THE CUSTER MASSACRE.
The retreat to the Dominion may by said to have been rather, the triumphant return of a conqueror than the retreat of a defeated chief. He retired as a victor crowned with laurel and his untutored mind filled with a haughty disdain of his adversary. So great at this time was his renown among the whole Indian race, so mysterious had he become because of the fact that no white man save a few scouts had ever beheld his countenance, that romance fairly flourished round his name. Yet Sitting Bull's real rank and influence in his tribe are all misconceived by the whites. The idea of him as a supreme and relentless warrior, exercising supreme control over his people, must be re placed by a definition more subtle but in accordance with actual fact.
SITTING BULL'S REAL POSITION IN HIS TRIBE.
He has been neither a chief or a warrior, and yet his influence over his tribe is stronger than that which he would exercise in either of these capacities. That his position may be clearly understood you should comprehend the real and peculiar organization of his people.

NATURE OF INDIAN GOVERNMENT
All the Indian tribes of the plains bear a remarkably strong likeness in their native government to the Arabs and Tartars and other Asiatic nomads. Abstractly, the mode may be termed patriarchal, but actually as it is practically carried out it is nearly pure republicanism. This is strictly true in the case of the bands of the Sioux now with Sitting Bull. The several tribes represented among his warriors are the Uncpapas. Ogallallas, Minneconjous. Zanzacs [sic!] Blackfeet, Two Kettle and Brules. They number in all, men, women and children included, some 2,000 souls. There are out of this number 800 and more warriors. The camp thus made up acknowledges no one Indian as its absolute chief or ruler. Each family has its head, each band like wise. There is a war lodge in the camp and one warrior acknowledged as head soldier.

THE HEAD SOLDIER
This head soldier is not Sitting Bull, but Long Dog, one of the meat notorious of the Sioux chiefs. Less than two years ago this merciless wretch burned two American soldiers alive at the stake. Even Long Dog's office as head soldier extends simply to the policing of the camp and to the direction of a march in case of break-up of the camp. In time of battle there is no chief warrior who exercises the same authority as that of a general in a European army over his troops. Even in the fight with Custer, it is alleged by the chiefs who participated in that memorable and sanguinary struggle that no one among them controlled the rest or exercised any authority or command, They all acted in perfect concert, but in a sort of federal direction.
FAMOUS WARRIORS
Among the chiefs of bands in Sitting Bull's camp, some three day's march from here, are several who are famed in the stories of the recent Indian war. Among others Black Moon, Four Horns, One Horn, Red Horn, No Neck, Bear's Head, Little Knife Flying Bird, Lame Brule and Pretty Bear. The latter is the man who is said to have taken Custer's watch. These names are as familiar to Western frontiersmen as household words are in the East. Iron Dog, another chief, is the oldest of the lot, but the greatest chief of all is Spotted Eagle, whom I shall presently describe among the leading men. Among the chief men who exert influence because of their talents and address, and who are often chosen instead of the chiefs to mate speeches in council or in conference with the leaders of other tribes, are the Crow Medicine, Turns Around and Little Assiniboine, who is a sort of sub-chief.

SITTING BULL AS NECROMANCER
The duties of Little Assiniboine correspond with those of the being whom Maj. Walsh calls a "capper' or a magican. By this expression the major lets one into the “true inwardness" of Sitting Bull's relations to the wild and superstitious remnants of tribes over which he exerts an almost unprecedented influence. Though he is neither a chief nor a warrior Sitting Bull is a necromancer. He is a "medicine man'' of such un-common ability as to have retained his power for ten consecutive years. In this respect his position as the counseller of his people is greater than that of any cabinet minister in the civilized world.

POLICY OF THE SIOUX CHIEF
Yet his course has been extremely simple. He merely marked out a clear line of policy, and has had the pluck to pursue it under all circumstances. He said in 1867:”Let us have nothing to do with the Americans; let us make no peace with them; let us live and die like Indi ans." Adhering to this policy never swerving from it, always succeeding with it, he has naturally carried his people with him. This is the secret of his power and of the apparent infallibility of his advice. His dictum is relied on in every emergency, his dreams are reckoned by the Sioux around his as more infallible than Newton's tests or Hershel's observations. His omens of the war-path, his prescience regarding the buffalo and other game have never failed him.

ALMOST A DESPOT
Consequently he is to-day as seen regarding his dominion over the minds and fears of those about him as the war-chiefs are in the confidence of their followers in battle. Indeed, he directs the events of war and peace with the skill of a senate and the authority of a resident united in one man. Acting up to his old standard, Sitting Bull refused at first to-consider the proposition Maj. Walsh made to him at his camp to confer with the commission.

[grahamew]

"This head soldier is not Sitting Bull, but Long Dog, one of the meat notorious of the Sioux chiefs. Less than two years ago this merciless wretch burned two American soldiers alive at the stake"

Does this refer to an actual incident or is it sensationalist nonsense?

"Lame Brule" - that's Black Bull, the leader who stayed in Canada, isn't it?

[gregor]

One of the key interviews was conducted by a Pioneer Press reporter on August 1, 1881, with Sitting Bull at Fort Yates. In this interview, he gave particular information about his family relationships - parents, wives, children.
One Bull and Four Horns were present and “Fish” Allison acted as interpreter. Also present were some more whites.
In all likelihood also photographer Goff. Maybe on this occasion or a few days later Orlando Goff shot the very first photographs of Sitting Bull.
The St. Paul Pioneer press published this interview on August 4, 1881. Unfortunately, the original interview is currently not available for me.

But maybe it is a good idea to file such key interviews here centrally.

The interview was then reprinted by many newspapers as a summary.
Here e.g. on August 5, 1881 by the Bismarck Tribune

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/search/pages/results/?state=North+Dakota&date1=1881&date2=1882&proxtext=Sitting+Bull&dateFilterType=yearRange&rows=20&searchType=basic&x=0&y=0

[gregor]

And this is a summary in The Petaluma Courier, September 7, 1881 (Wednesday, Page 1) :

Sitting Bull [Petaluma Courier Headline]

The St. Paul Pioneer gives an account of a reporter's late interview with the old warrior. It is interesting to all who are admirers of Indian character.

The writer says:
The face, to any one who has seen a Sionx chief, is strikingly characteristic the high, pointed, narrow forehead and the correspondingly-attenuated chin ; The prominent cheek bones and pronounced nose; the intent, wide-open eyes, and mere than all, the Mephistophelean mouth, with its sardonic, sneering expression, conveying so much of unbelief and distrust, all go to make the tout ensemble of the intelligent, wily, scornful, suspicions savage whose barbarism has received only a lacquer of repression through attrition with civilized whites. The old man is poor that can be seen at a glance. Upon his head are no waving plumes, save the indispensable coup feather which droops as if in sympathy with its owner's fallen fortunes. Instead of the fur-trimmed braids and gaudy bead and headdress of the agency Indian is the simple handkerchief - safely may it be assumed it is grimed with filth and age - knotted carelessly behind. The spectacles may strike some observers as odd, but many Indians wear them, as a protection against snow-blindness in winter, and the alkali dust of the plains in summer and Sitting Bull has reached the age when his eyes are "purging thick amber and plum-tree gum," and need the covering the lenses afford. As before stated, he is swarthy of complexion remarkably dark in fact and "ago has withered him," while lack of food and The continual trouble crowded into his last few years, have given vigor to „decay’s effacing lingers.
Sitting Bull gave the following account of himself:
Interpreter " Where were you born, and when?
Sitting Bull" I don't know where I was born, and can not remember. I know that I was born, though, or would not be here. I was born of a woman. I know this is a fact, because I exist.''
Sitting Bull here held a long conversation with his uncle, Chief Four Horns, and after pointing at different fingers for some time, said:
"I was born near old Fort George, on Willow Greek, below the mouth of The Cheyenne River. I am forty-four years old as near as I can tell. Wo count our years from the moons between great events. The event from which l date my birth is the year in which Thunder Hawks was born. I am as old as he. I have always been running around. Indians that remain on the same hunting grounds all the time can remember years better."

Reporter „How many wives and children have you?"
Sitting Bull (running over his fingers and then with his thumb and forefinger of one hand pinching and holding together two fingers of his other hand) "I have nine children and two living wives, and one wife that has gone to The Great Spirit. I have two pairs of twins."

Lieutenant Dowdy "Tell Sitting Bull he is more fortunate than I am. I can't get one wife."
At this interruption Sitting Bull laughed.

Reporter „Which is your favorite wife?"
Sitting Bull " I think as much of one as the other. If I did not I would not keep them. I think if I had a white wife I would think more of her than the other two."

Reporter "What are the names of your wives?"
Sitting Bull (raising the side of the tent and calling a squaw to him evidently he asked her)"Was Seen By The Nation is the name of the old one. The One That Had Four Robes is the name of the other."

Reporter “Are you a chief by inheritance, and if not, what deeds of bravery gave you the title?"
Sitting Bull "My father and two uncles were chiefs. My father's name was The Jumping Bull. My uncle that is in the teepee is called Four Horns, and my other uncle was called Hunting His Lodge. My father was a very rich man and owned a great many good ponies in four colors. In ponies he took much pride. They were roan, white and grey. He had great numbers, and I never wanted for a horse lo ride. When I was ten years old I was famous as a famous hunter. My specialty was buffalo calves. (Here Bull indicated with his arms how he killed the buffalo.) I gave the calves I killed to the poor that had no horses. I was considered a good man. (Here Bull again counted on his fingers and joints ) My father died twenty-one years ago. For four years after I was ten years old I killed buffalo and fed his people, and thus became one of the fathers of the tribe. At the age of fourteen, I killed an enemy, began to make myself great in battle, and became a chief.
Before this, from ten to fourteen, my people had named me The Sacred ------- [?]. After killing an enemy they called me TaTan Ka I You Tan Ke, or Sitting Ball. An Indian may be an inherited chief, but he has to make himself a chief by his bravery.

(Although several efforts were made. and much tact used, Sitting Ball would not speak of his life beyond the age of fourteen)
The pale faces had things that we needed in order to bunt. We needed ammunition. Our interests were in place. I never sold that much land.
(Here Sitting Bull picked up with his thumb and forefinger a little of the pulverized dirt in the tent, and holding it up let it fall and blow away.)

I never made or sold a treaty with the United States. I came in to claim my rights and the rights of my people. I was driven in force from my land and I now come back to claim it for my people. I never made war on the United States Government. I never stood in the white man's country. I never committed any depredations in the white man's country. I never made the white man's heart bleed. The white man came on to my land and followed me. The white man made [me] fight for my bunting grounds. The white man made me kill him, or he would kill my friends, my women and my children."

Reporter "The white man admires your conduct in a battle. You showed yourself to be a great chief in the Custer fight."
Sitting Bull "There was a Great Spirit who guided and controlled that battle. I could do nothing. I was sustained by the great mysterious One." (Here Sitting Bull pointed upward with his forefinger.)

Reporter "You conducted the battle well;- so well that many thought that you were not an Indian, but that you were a while man and knew the white man's ways."
Sitting Bull (pointing to his wrist) „I was not a white man, for the Great Spirit did not make me a white skin. I did not fight the white man's back. I came out and met him on the grass. When I say Running Antelope is a fool I mean he made treaties and allowed the white man to come in and occupy our land. Ever since that time there has been trouble. I do not want aid or assistance from the whites or anyone else. I want them to stay from my country, and allow me to hunt in my own land. I want no blood spilled on my land, except the blood of the buffalo. I want to hunt and trade for many moons. You have asked me to come In. I wanted the white man to provide for me for several years, if I came in. You have never offered me any inducements, to come in. I did not want to come. My friends that came got soap and ax-handles, but not enough to eat. I have come in, and want the white man to allow me to hunt in my own country. That is the way I live. I want to keep my ponies. I can’t hunt without ponies. The buffalo runs fast. The white man wanted me to give up everything."

Reporter" What treatment do you expect from the Government? If not satisfied, what shall you do? "
Sitting Bull" I expected to stay but a few days at Buford. When I came in, I did not surrender. I want the Government to let me occupy, the Little Missouri country. There is plenty of game there. I have damages against the Government for holding my land and game. I want the Great Father to pay me for it."

The reporter here asked the interpreter to get an idea of what Sitting Bull meant by the Little Missouri country.
Sitting Bull "My hunting ground is from the bad lands to the end of the Little Missouri, and I want it extended down here, where some of my people are, so that I can trade."
Reporter "What do Chiefs Gall and Running Antelope say about their treatment here?"
Sitting Bull "Antelope is a fool. I have seen Gall. He can't tell me anything. Ha is not a chief of my people."
Reporter "Don't you think the Indians here are treated well?”
Sitting Bull" I have not had a chance to talk with them. They are waiting for me to speak. They want to give me a feast and hold a council. I am not jealous of them. I don't know whether we will hold a council or not."

Reporter 'Tell us all about the Custer battle. How did it happen? Did you direct the main forces "
Sitting Bull (after a Iong silence) "I am not afraid to talk about that. It all happened, it is past and gone. I do not lie, but do not want to talk about it. Low Dog says I can't fight until some one lends me a heart. Gall says my heart is no bigger than that (placing one forefinger at the base of the nail of another finger.) We have all fought hard. We did not know Custer. When we saw him, we threw up our hands and I cried, 'Follow me and do as I do.' We whipped each other's horses, and it was all over.
Reporter "Custer's men were all killed. There is no one to tell us about the battle but you. We keep a record of our battles and study them. We write histories of brave men. We will never fight The Sioux again. Tell us more about it."

Sitting Bull "There was not as many Indians as the white man says. They are all warriors. There was not more than 2.000”.
Reporter "Crow King says on the second day, when you were fighting Reno’s men, that you asked your warriors not to kill any more, that you had already killed enough."
Sitting Bull "Crow King speaks the truth; l did not want to kill any more men. I did not like that kind of work. I only defended my camp. When we had killed enough, that was all that was necessary.”


End of the article/summary. Do we have more articles, interviews like that above?