The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-01-05 00:00:00

THE STOCTIIBEIDGE OBSERVER_

CONFERENCE WITH "BITTING BULL."

Despatches from Wasl ington state that General Terry
and A. H. Lawrence, commissioners to treat with Sitting
have made their report to the American Secretary of
the Interior. The Milian chiefs were brought in at Fort
Walsh, and their names announced as follows :—Bear's
Heed, heed chief of the lincapepas ; Sitting Bull, the Spotted
Eagle, the Flying Bird, the Whirlwiod Bear, the Medicine
Turns Around, the Iron Dog, the Man that Scatters the
Bear, Little Knife, the Crow, and Yellow Doe. General
Terry then read to them the propositions, in substance as
follows :

The President desires to make a lasting peace with
you and your people; he desires that all hostilities
shall cease, and that all the people of the United
States shall live together in harmony. He wishes
this, not for the sake of the whites alone, but for
your sake as well, and 111 has instructed us to say
that if you will return to your country and here-
after refrain from acts of hostility against its Govern-
ment and people, a full pardon will be given to
you for all acts committed in the past; that no
matter what those acts have been, no attempt will
be made to punish you, or any man among you; that
what is past shall bo forgotten, and that you shall
be received in the friendly spirit in which the other
Indians who have been engaged in hostilities against
the United States and have surrendered to its military
forces, have been received. Of all those bands which
were at war with the United States a year ago, this
band of yours, which has sought refuge in the British
possessions, is the only one which has not surrendered;
every other one has come into some of its agencies estab-
lished for the Sioux nation. Of these hands no single
man has ever been punished for his hostile or criminal
acts.

Sitting Bull said :—For 64 years you have kept me
and my people and treated us bad. What have we
done that you should want us to stop? We have done
nothing. It is all the people on your side that have
started us to do all these depredations. We could not
go anywhere else, and so we took refuge in this
country. It was on this side of the country we learned
to shoot, and that is the reason why I came back to it
again. I would like to know why you came here. In
the first place, I did not give you the country, but
you followed me from one place to another, so I had
to leave and come over to this country. I was
born and raised in this country with the Red
River half. breeds, and I intend to stop with
them. I was raised hand-in-hand with the Red
River half-breeds, and we are going over to that part
of the country, and that is the reason wiry I have come
over here. [Shaking hands with the British officers.]
That is the way I was raised, in the hands of these
people here, and that is the way I intend to be with
them. You have got ears, and you have got eyes to
see with them, and you see how I live with these
people. You see me? Here I am? If you think I
am a fool you are a bigger fool than I am. This house
is a medicirie-house. You come here to tell us lies,
but we don't want to hear them. I don't wish any
such language used to me--that is, to bell me such
lies in my Great Mother's house. Don't you say two
more words. Go back home where you came from.
This country is mine, and I intend to stay here,
and to raise this country ful lof grown people. See
these people here. We were raised with them. [Again
shaking hands with the British officers.] That is
enough ; so no more. You see me shaking hands
with these people. The part of the country you
gave me you ran me out of. I have now come here to
stay with these people, and I intend to stay here.
I wish you to go back, and to "take it easy"
going back. [Taking a Santee Indian by the
hand.] These Santees : I was born and raised with
them. He is going to tell you something about them.
Speeches of similar import were then made by the
One that Runs the Kee, Nine, the }lying Bird, and a
squaw named the One that Speaks Once. The Indians
having risen, being anparently about to leave the room,
the interpreter was directed to ask the following ques-
tions :

Shall I say to the President that you refuse the
offers that he has made to you? Are we to understand
from what you have said that you refuse those offers?
Sitting Bull: I could tell you more, but that is all
I have to tell you. If we told you more, why,
you would not pay any attention to it. That
is all I have to say. This part of the country
does not belong to your people. You belong on the
other side. This side belongs to us.
The commissioners report that they are convinced
that Sitting Bull and the Indians with him will not
seek to return at present. It is believed that they are
estrained from returning partly by their recollection
of the constant and harassing pursuit to which they
were subjected during the last winter and spring by
the troops ur der General Miles, a pursuit which
ended only with their flight to foreign soil, partly by
the assurances given them by the Canadian autho-
rities that should they return with hostile intent they
will become "the enemies of both Governments," and
in part by their belief that for some reasons, which
they cannot fathom, the Government of the United
States very earnestly desires that they shall return.