River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-02-27
THE wRoNGED oHEyENNEs.
HOtg They Here GOdded Into a RerOIt and
Murdered.

fgOudG0 {(GcOtf
Murdered.
bishop Whipple ia the n Y. Evening Post.
The northern Cheyennes were parties to
the treaty which Gen. Sherman and others
made in 1886. In that council the Sioux,
Cheyennes and Arraphahoes refused tc make
another treaty with the United States unless
it was expressly provided tnat no white man
should enter the country set apart for their
homes. Their bitter experience had taught
them that this was their only safety. This
treaty was made, and the required pledge was
made a part of it. The forts we're all removed
and the new country guaranteed them for
ever. | need not tell the history of the seizure
of the Black Hills. In 1876 these Indians, de-
sirous of peace and hoping for restitution,
ceded the Black Hills to the United States.
The President and Congress directed the
commissioners to make provision for these
Indians, to visit the Indian Territory, and if
they were willing to accept home there,
then they were to be removed. Congress re-
fused to allow the removal of the Sioux.
! The Cheyennes were related to the Sioux by
marriage, and they were unwilling to be sep
arated from their relatives and friends. The
Cheyennes were removed and became dissat-
| isfied with the change. The treaty and the
President had promised them, if they SO do
sired, homes IN their old country. do no
know why they fed from the Indian Terri
tory. They say that it was sick
ness and starvation. They were pursued by
troops. They had had bitter experience be
fore, when they were hunted as outlaws. Il
meant to them war. They accepted it and
carried it on with all the brutal horrors Of
savage massacre. For whatever blunders are
made the real sufferers are the innocent peo-
pie of the border. The Cheyennes were cap
tured at last near their old home and conn
try to which they had a claim under the
treaty. The telegraph says that these Chey-
enne captives We're deprived of food and fire
for five days in Dakota in January to force
them to consent to return to the Indian Ter
ritory that when fire was offered to the
women they refused and said "We will
freeze to death together" They escaped
from prison and lied, were pursued, hunted
down as wolves, and these Cheyenne men
women and children, welcomed death to-
gether The New York Herald reporter
gives a CHASTITY picture of their slaughtered
corpses, and describes the frenzy of the wife
of the chief, Wild Hog, who alto mpted tc
| kill herself and her wounded husband. She
is described as a hideous old beldame. In
other days men called this frenzy love Of
| country. / do not marvel at her frenzy
4
her relatives slain, her hus band wounded
and dying, she almost the only one left. YET
this woman came of a Sioux family who
have always been our friends. In 1877, Gen
Mckenzie ordered the Ogallala Sioux
to deliver to him all hostile Indians who
came into their camp. There was a noted
desperate, Sioux Jim, who had killed more
whites than any one of the hostile Indians
| No one dared to arrest him. 1t was the
brother of Wild Hogs wife, American
Horse, who killed Sioux Jim, and brought
his body to the general. He did 1t with the
certainty that for a year every relative Of
Sioux Jim would seek his life But ther
American Horse is only an Indian, an6
neither he nor his family have any claims
upon the gratitude of the white man.
| need not go on. | envy no mans heaC
or heart who reads the last fifteen years o.
Cheyenne history and does not feel the
deepest pity for this hunted, outlawed people
Dark as this Cheyenne tragedy is, it is only 8
type of our whole history of dealing with
| tho rod man