The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1872-08-07
Romance on the Plains.

EXPERIENCE OF FEMALE GOVERNMENT
CLERK AS THE WIFE OF AN INDIAN CHEIr.
The Kansas City Times, of the Doth
ult., contains the following history,
which will be read with interest by
many persons:
The steamer Fontenelle arrived at
this city yesterday morning, after a
three months trip to Fort Benton and
the mountains. Among her miscella-
neous cargo of robes, furs, peltries, ard
Nebraska corn, was female named
Miss Amanda Barber, nee Squatting
Bear, who, in fit offanatical romance,
offered herself, in 1867, as voluntary
missionary to the Brule Sioux, then
occupying the territory between the
Cheyenne River and the Big Horn
Mountains. Dakota Territory.
Miss Barber created quite sensa.
ton in the Eastern States by her mar
riage viii. g young Indian named
Squatting Bear, who accompanied a
party of Sioux to Washington, in 1867.
Miss Barber was at that time a clerk
in one of the departments at Washing
tor, in a position secured for her by
General Butler before the impeach-
ment fasco. According to her own
statement, made yesterday to our re-
porter, she was firmly impressed with
the ideality and perfection of the red
men of the Plains. She had read eve
rytliing relating to the Indian tribes,
from the reports Of the Commissioner
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, q 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 initiated
into her new life as a white squaw.
Her romantic ideas seem to have re-
ceiyed terrible shock since her intro
duction to her new home and relations,
and though she endeavored to fulfill
her mission as a teacher and missiona-
airy to the best of her abilities, her
progress appears to have been as slow
as the progress of civilization on the
Plains. She states that her first great
surprise was being required to mount
upon wild, vicious pony, and travel
without saddle or attention over the
country from the Missouri, to the
White Earth River, distance of sew
eral hundred miles. Her inability to
make the journey provoked mirth
among her husbands companions, and
finally exasperated squatting Bear un-
til he bound her with a rope to the
pony's back, and led the animal him
self on the westward trail. She was
still more surprised to find her husband
possessed of two other wlves-ono a
vicious, dirty squaw of forty years of
age; the other y girl Of scarcely four
teen years. Her life in his wigwam, or
teepee, was not as bright and happy
as she expected it would be. Her hus-
bands absence was taken advantage
of by her rivals to compel her to per-
form the vilest drudgery, such as gath
ing wood, cooking meat and scraping
robes for the tanning process; but dur
ing Squatting Bears presence at: home,
Miss Barber appears to have been bet
ter treated. Her husband IN a violent
fit ofpassion, killed his old squaw dur
ing the first year she was the tribe,
when, without warning or notice, she
was hurried off to the main camp of
the Brules, three days journey towards
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 temporary drying camp at
Rawhide River, where she attempted
to escape by walking to Fort Fetter-
man, distance of sixty miles. For
this attempt she was beaten until near
ly dead, and then sold by her husband
for three ponies to Cheyenne Chief,
who sported the very expressive soubri-
quet Of Coo Goose, or Baconsides. She
was taken north in 1870, and has re-
manned with the Cheyennes ever since,
until hcr escape this Spring, when she