Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1872-07-12
FIVE YEARS A sQUAw.
How the Romance of Indian Life was
Taken Out Of q Yanke, Schoolma,m

From the Kansas City Times s9,h
The steamer Fontanelle arrived at
this city yesterday morning after a
three months trip to Fort Benton
and the mountains. Among her
miscellaneous cargo of robes, furs,
peltries and Nebraska corn, was a
female named Miss Amanda Barber.
nee Squatting Bear, who in a fit of
fanatical romance offered herself in
1867 as a voluntary missionary to
the Brule Sioux, then occupying the
territory between the Cheyenne
river and the Big Horn Mountains,
Dakotah Territory.
Miss Barber created quite Il SEN
sation in the Eastern State by her
marriage with young Indian
named Squatting Bear, who accom-
panied party of Sioux to Wash.
ington in 1867. Miss Barber was
at that time clerk in one of the
departments at Washington, in a
position secured for her by Gen.
Butler, before the impeachment
fiasco. According to her own state
ment, made yesterday to our repor-
ter, she was firmly impressed with
the reality and perfection of the red
men Of the plains. She had read
everything relating to the Indian
tribes, from the reports Of the Com
missioner of Indian Affairs down to
the latest dime novel. In a fit of
enthusiasm or temporary insanity,
she offered herself to and became
the wife of Squatting Bear, junior
chief in the Lone Horn band of
Brule Sioux, and with him and his
party returned to the Yankton
agency, where she was duly initia-
ted into her new life as white
squaw. Her romantic ideas of
Indian life seem to have received a
terrible shock since her introduce
ton to her new home and relations,
and though she endeavored to full
fill her mission as a teacher and
missionary to the best of her abili-
ties, her progress appears to have
been as slow as the progress OF
civilisation on the plains. She
states that her first great surprize
was being required to mount upon
4 wild, vicious pony, and travel
without saddle or attention over the
country from the Missouri to the
White Earth river, distance of
several hundred miles. Her in
ability to make the journey provoked
mirth among her husbands com
panions, and finally exaspcratcd
Squatting Bear until he bound her
with a rope to the pony's back and
led the animal himself on the west
ward trail She was still more
surprised to find her husband
possessed of two other wives, one a
vicious dirty squaw of forty years
Of age, the other girl of scarcely
fourteen years. Her life in his wig
wan, or teepee, was not as bright
and as happy as she expected it
would be. Her husbands absence
was taken advantage of by her
rivals to compel her to perform the
vilest drudgery, such as gathering
wood, cooking meat, and scraping
robes for the tanning process; but
during Squatting Bears presence
at home Miss Barber appears to
have been better treated. Her
husband, in a violent fit of passion,
killed his oldest squaw during the
first year she was with the tribe,
when without warning or notice she
was hurried off to the main camp
Of the Brules, three days journey
toward the mountain, and from
thence she accompanied the tribe on
its annual buffalo hunt, where she
became sick from exposure and
fatigue. She was left at Il temper
airy drying camp at Rawhide river,
where she attempted to escape by
walking to Fort Fcttorman, dis
lance Of sixty miles. For this at
tempt she was beaten until nearly
dead and then sold by her husband
for three ponies, to Cheyenne
chief who sported the expressive
sobriquet of Coo Goose, or Bacon
sides. She was taken north in 1870
and has remained with the Cheyen-
mes ever since, until her escape this
spring, when she made her appear
ance at and claimed the protection
Of the authorities at Fort Benton.
Miss BARRIERS experiences would no
doubt make y story more thrilling
than that of the Escaped Nun"
She is !. woman rather plain in APP
pearancc, skin tawny and black,
eyes small, dark and impressive,
voice rather masculinc-and, in fact
just such a woman rs Mrs. Col. An
thony or Jennie Claflin would choose
for second in command. Miss
Barber converscd with our reporter
without the least dittidencc, and
answered any question asked of her.
She says that, so far as the romance
Of Indian life is concerned, she
found none Of it. Her efforts to
teach and refor III the young Indian
children were treated with indiffer-
ence and contempt. She learned
the Sioux language easily, but the
CHEYENNE dialect was harder to
acquire. She has much higher
opinion of the Cheyenncs than ofthe
Sioux. The latter tribe she says
IRE to blame for nearly all the
thieving and numbering done in the
white settlements. She found it
necessary to paint and color like the
rest of the tribe while she was with
them, and twice witnessed the muir
der or execution Of white men, one
a soldier of the sod United States
Infantry, who had been taken while
out hunting, who was burnt and
slalpcd ; the others were two
Transfers brought from Fort Me-
Pherson. All three were burnt at a
place called "Saddlcr's Hill" in the
Nebraska "Bad Lands"
Miss Barber has n poor opinion OF
Grants Quaker policy, which she
says is perfect farce, and is so re.
gardcd by the Indians. She asserts
that there will be no peace while
white men intrude into the buffalo
range or tempt tho cNpidity Of the