Beaufort Republican. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1871-1873, 1872-08-01
Five Years q squaw.

narrated by telegraph: The steamer fon-
tenells arrived at this city, after 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, who, in fit of fanatical romance,
offered herself, in 1857, as a voluntary
missionary to the Brule Sioux, then occu-
pying the territory between the Cheyenne
river, and the Big Horn MOUNTAINS, Dakota
Territory. Miss Barber created quite a
sensation in the Eastern States by her mar
riage with young Indian named Squatting
Bear, who accompanied party Of Sioux to
Washington in 1867. Miss Barber was at
that time clerk in one of the Depart
ments at Washington, in position secured
for her by Gen. Butler, before the i'm
peachment fasco. According to her own
statement, she wae firmly impressed with
the ideality and perfection of the red men
of the plains. She had read everything
relating to the Indian tribes, from the
reports of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs down to the latest dime novel. In
fit of enthusiasm or temporary insanity,
she offered herself to and became the wife
of Squatting Bear, a junior, chief in the
Lone Horn band of Brule Sioux, and with
him and his party returned to the Yank-
ton Agency, where she was duly initiated
into her new life as white squaw. Her
romantic ideas of Indian life seemed to
have received terrible shock since her
introduction to her new home and rela-
tions, and though she endeavored to fulfill
her mission as q teacher and missionary
to the best of her ability, her progress
appears to have been as slow as the pro-
gress 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 OF
attention over the country from the Mis-,
souri, to the White Earth river, distance
of several hundred miles. Her inability
to make the journey provoked mirth
among her husbands companions, and
finally exasperated Squatting Bear until
he k,nd her with a rope to the pony's
back and led the animal himself, on the
westward trail. She was still more sur
prised to find her husband possessed Of
two other wives, one a vicious, dirty
squaw of forty years of age, the other q
girl of scarcely fourteen years.
Her life in his wigwam, or teepse, was
not so bright and happy as she expected
it would be. Her husbands absence was
taken advantage of by her rivalato COM
pei 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 violent
fit of passion, killed his oldest squaw dur
ing 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 to the noun
tains, 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 Fetterman, q
distance of sixty miles. For this attempt
she was beaten until nearly dead, and then
sold by her husband for three ponies to q
Cheyenne chief, who sported the express
sve sou5riqust or Coo-Coose, or Bacon
sides. She was taken north in 1870, and
has remained with the Cheyennes ever
since, until her escape this spring, when
she made her appearance at and claimed
the protection of the authorities at Fort
Benton.
Miss Barber conversed with our reporter
without difidence, and answered any
question asked of her, She says that, so
far as the romance of Indian life is con-
cerned, she found none Of it. Her efforts
to teach and reform the young Indian
children were treated with Indifference
and contempt. She learned the Sioux
language easily, but the Cheyenne dialect
was harder to acquire. She has much
higher opinion of the Cheyennes tlan of
the Sioax. The latter tribe she says are
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, once a
soldier belonging to the Thirty-second
United States Infantry, who had been
taken while out hunting, who was burnt
and scalped; the others were two team
sters brought from Fort Mcpherson. All
three were burnt at place called "Sad.
dler's Hill, in the Nebraska "Bad Lands"
Miss Barber asserts that there will be no
peace while white men intrude into the
Buffalo range or tempt the cupidity of