Connecticut western news., 1873-08-29
The Indian Fight.
The Bloody Conflict Between the
 Sioux and Pawnees.

The Bloody Conflict Between the
 Sioux and Pawnees.
 A letter from Grand Island, Neb- raska, says: Some two or three weeks ago the Pawnees, mum bering some two or three hundred strong, with squaws and papooses and six hundred ponies, started from their reservation for their annual hunt in the great Republican Valley. After reaching the hunting grounds, and while pursuing their wild denly surprised and attacked by some , fifteen hundred Siouxs under the con- mand of Young Spotted Tail. The fight occurred between the Republican River and Black Wood Ceeek. It was long and stubborn fight, but the Pawnees were forced to retreat before superior numbers.
 When the Pawnees were informed that there was strong force of the Sioux in their front, they immediately hurried their squaws and papooses to 8 deep canyon, or ravine, for safety, and then struck out on the prairie in the presence of their deadliest foe, to op- pose their advance and protect their sheltered ones by taking their chances of battle.
 The Sioux were splendidly armed and equipped. The Pawnees were not, hay ing but few rifles with them, as it is their custom to use the bow and arrow with their revolvers, because easier handled on the hunt, when in close con- tact with the buffalo. The Pawnee warriors soon learned that they were not equal in the fight. The odds being desperate, and being no match for the Sioux with their fine Henry rifles and superior carbines, they were forced back, and that so rapidly that they could not save their squaws and pa pooses, for the foe had succeeded in getting between them and the Pawnees, who, with desperate valor, disputed inch by inch the groun on which they fought. The Sioux, like bloody tigers, thirsty and ferocious, sprang upon the defenceless ones in the canyon and butchered them without mercy, for the stern resistance of the brave Pawnees had aroused their revengeful ire and called into action all the bloody in- stincts and barbarity of their natures, braining and scalping the squaws, and plunging their long knives into the bodies of the papooses, and hurling them into the flames of the burning camp fires.
 Sky Chief, one of the most brave and daring of the Pawnee tribe, with his squaw and papoose, fell a victim to the Sioux's onslaught and thirst for blood. By nature he was endowed with quail ties that made him great among his people; natural orator, whose voice was ever heard in the interest of his tribe at the council fire, as many gov ernment official can attest, and he was a firm friend of the white man.: .,. .z.
 The Sioux followed the Pawnees on their retreat with a running fight. for twenty-five miles, lasting some ten hours. All this occurred within 120 miles of the city of Grand Island.
 The surviving Pawnees, with their wounded, passed East through this city on freight train No. 8, e,a route for their reservation, with grief, notwithstanding their stoical indifference, written on every lienament of their faces. A num- Der of the Sioux were made to bite the dust, though even an approximation to the amount will probably never be known. The Pawnees had been very successful in their hunt, and were just ward, having already killed more than | AH0 OuAdlO0Ss l HIS IS d b6IGl- ble and crushing blow to the tribe, from which they can never recover, for their loss was over one hundred in killed and wounded, besides half of their ponies falling into the hands of the enemy. It was the most desperate and bloody fight that has occurred between the tribes on the frontier in years. This loss of warriers makes 8 large gap in the tribe. But let the Sioux beware of even the remnant left, for when they recover and are in heart again and properly armed one hundred Pawnee warriors would put thousand Sioux to rout. Ii is 8 we'll known fact in this country that for the last three months the Pawnees have been seeking friendly negotiations . with the Siouxs, but the latter, for req sons better known, perhaps, to thei1 chiefs, kept out of their way or would not meet them. It is thought, and very Z justly, too, by many on the frontier ! that this surprise in the Republican
 Valley was all premeditated and prear
 ranged by the crafty cunning of spotted
 tail, who was absent and not with hif , tribe on the big hunt, his son being il 3 command; and then the new arms and ! ammunition, recently or at the las S council, which was demanded of anC complied with by the government, tend v ed toward the fatal results which has 7 proved so disastrous to the Pawnees. I Many of the old settlers in this coun- l. try, who have lived here many years feel that the officials under the govern ment of these United States deserve t censure in allowing these tribes to leav' V their reservations and hunt in sucl f close proximity with each other with # out the presence of an armed force sufi t cient to keep them from collision, fo q the homes of the settlers on the borde # are imperiled when their wild passion t. are aroused.
 d These annual hunts are pursued b. e the different tribes for the. purpose O V obtaining skins and meat for appare n and subsistence, whereby they obtai1 1T the buffalo beef, which the squaws dr7 is by the fires while the warriors hunt, ant
 which forms large share of their liv
 ing during the winter months. Tn government officiary are not ignorant o 't the Siouxs' deadly enmity and hat a against the Pawnee tribe, and cherishe IS with ferocity and bitterness more in s- tense from the relations they formerl IS sustained toward the government whe, g employed to protect the frontier an 'e the Plains from the encroachments o the Sioux tribe for many of the Paw r. nees were United States soldiers. Al t. though treaties have been effected wit W the Sioux nation, through her grea ,,e chiefs, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail an l. others, yet.they would not hesitate-a W in the opinion of the settlers-if the le dared, to spring upon the settlement
 with the same ferocity they attacked tn
 Pawnees, with all their pretende
 friendship for the whites. An ol . frontiersman, dilating on the blood ,e massacre, gave expression to the follow