From: enigma@halcyon.com (Matt Luders)
Subject: Relationship of Pawnee to Sioux and U.S. Army 
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 00:29:58 GMT

David Hough writes:

"it seems to me that a big problem with Dances With Wolves is it makes the
 Lt., and the Lakotas, look like a bunch of heroic saints, and the enlisted
 ranks of the US Cavalry, and the Pawnees, look like a bunch of bums.
 Something that clear cut doesn't sound like real life."

Regarding the relationship of the Pawnees to their neighboring tribes,
and to the U.S. Army, you may find the following excerpts interesting.
They are taken from the book _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_, by Dee Brown.
Recall that "Sioux" refers to a number of Western tribes, including those
portrayed as Lakotas in Dances With Wolves.  "Star Chief Connor" refers
to General Patrick E. Connor.


From Chapter Five: Powder River Invasion:

"In the meantime, Star Chief Connor had started construction of a stockade
about sixty miles south of the Crazy Woman Fork of the Powder and named it
in honor of himself, Fort Connor.  With Connor's column was a company of
Pawnee scouts under command of Captain Frank North.  The Pawnees were old
tribal enemies of the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos, and they had been
enlisted for the campaign at regular cavalrymen's pay.  While the soldiers
cut logs for Connor's stockade, the Pawnees scouted the area in search of
their enemies." ...

"Early the next morning, Star Chief Connor's soldiers attacked the Arapaho
camp. ... A few moments later, at the sound of a bugle and the blast of a
howitzer, eighty Pawnee scouts and 250 of Connor's cavalrymen charged the
village from two sides."


From Chapter Seven: "The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian":

"By chance that day Major Frank North's Pawnee scouts found the trail of
the fleeing Cheyennes.  (These Pawnees were the same mercenaries who four
years before had gone into the Powder River Country with General Connor and
had been chased out by Red Cloud's warriors.)  With scarcely any warning,
the Pawnees and General Carr's Bluecoats charged into Tall Bull's camp."


From Chapter Twelve: "The War for the Black Hills":

"Next morning, to degrade his beaten prisoners even further, Mackenzie
presented a company of mercenary Pawnee scouts (the same Pawnees the Sioux
had once driven out of their Powder River country) with the horses the
soldiers had taken from the Sioux." ...

"It was in the Deer Rutting Moon, and very cold, with deep snow in the
shaded places.  Mackenzie brought his troopers up to attacking positions
during the night, and struck the Cheyennes at first daylight.  The Pawnee
mercenaries went in first, charging on the fast ponies Mackenzie had taken
from the reservation Sioux.  They caught the Cheyennes in their lodges,
killing many of them as they came awake.  Others ran out naked into the
biting cold, the warriors trying to fight off the Pawnees and the
onrushing soldiers long enough for their women and children to escape."


Clearly, the Pawnees were no friends of the Sioux (Dakota), Cheyennes,
or Arapahos.  That they were employed as scouts and mercenaries by the U.S.
Army is historical fact.  Whether this makes them "bums" depends on your
point of view, I suppose.


Matt Luders

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