Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1909-04-30

stretched arms, but the "man in the
dark" had taken from them lands
twenty miles in width for hundreds of
miles.
His arguments, as l see them now,
covered every one that the unSelfiSh
advocate of communal existence can
advance, practicable when the so call
ed "civilized man" has become as con-
tented as were the primitive children
of prairie land and forest, but, lacking
| which. this survival of the fttest
seems to decree the fate of the Indian
and control the relative prosperity of
the white. The fire horse caused
| prairie fires. His attendants increased
until they came with shovel, spade and
carpenter tools. They first erected
tepees, got lonely and brought their
squaws. Their friends soon came to
! join them, and soon wooden tepees
were built and camps became villages
and villages towns until cities were
! filed with crowds of people, such as
| Bismarck, Mandan, etc. Then the
man in the DARK sold the land.
Later when the crops failed and the
! lessee did not pay, he kicked the tenant
| out and reSold the land. He took the
money back iii the dark toward the
4 rising sun. If poor man had no
money he could not ride, but there was
! plenty Of room; he had to walk-often
| to die by the roadside Of hardships or
starvation, if some Samaritan Indian
did not feed him. The imam in the
dark" never came there when he and
l,i oh;
was responsible They were told to
send letters or speak by the lightning
to the man in the dark" but he never
answered. When the government trea-
ties were broken a similar discourteous
lack of considcra ton occurred. MY
chiefs and me, who signed were al
ways here. The great fathers head
men General Harney and others were
not. They never returned. New white
chiefs took their places, and every four
years new great fathers took power and
their men laughed at what their prede-
cessors had don2"
The breaking of treaties so frequent
ly and the invasion of the Black Hills
and other sections by the gold seekers,
prospectors and trappers became the
cause of constant irritation, leading to
almost continual contests, raids and
massacres. This condition had really
brought ON the war Of 1856, resulting
in the Custer fight as well as its many
succeeding cleanups
The forfeiture of the Black Hills and
injudicious reductions of rations kept
discomfort alive. When in 1889 con-
gress passed a law dividing the Sioux
reservation into many smaller ones SO
as to isolate the different tribes or
clans of the Dakota nation a treaty
was submitted to their vote whereby
by reinstating the cutoff rations and
paying for ponies captured or destroy
ed in the '7G war and other certain
conditions they ceded about one-half
their land-11 100000 acres. Fulfill
ment Of conditions was delayed, post
poned-forgotten, almost-by congress.
At this time, tarough some mysteri
Gus mountain phantom or trickster,
the medicine men, became easy vic
tins of q craze. This was based on
the assertion that the Messiah the
Manitou was coming back on earth to
use his miraculous power in favor Of
the red man to crush out the whites,
to restore everything to the idealistic
condition of former years, restock the
ranges with big game, buffaloes, elk,
deer, etc. This created a universal
fanatical fervor, and not alone among
the Sioux, but affected all Indians
on this continent. Former foes be-
came fast friends, and from the va
quis in old Mexico to the Alaskan
tribes in the far north the religious
ghost dance festivities famed the
flames Of war. The medicine mems
preaching that the holy medicinal
ghost shirts would protect the wearer,
turn the white mans bullets, was ac-
cepted and made recruits by thou
sands to the cause. The dancing
frightened the settlers, shocked the re-
ligious, philanthropic friends of the
Indians and was officially ordered
stopped. easy orders, eh?" Instead,
If they had been allowed to dance,
even If some did so to the death, ex-
haustion, like q boilers safety valve,
and an afterthought might soon have
made it appear to them in the ride
ulous light that so effectively kills abb
surdities.
I was at the time in Alsace-Lorraine
with my exhibition and had with me
seventy five Travelled Indians. We had
all the facts. and myself and partner
decided to close, camp the rest Of the
outfit in an old castle near Strassburg
BenfeldD with a large domain, and l
myself left by fast steamer via Eng
land for New York, while Major Burke,
with the Indians as pacifiers. came
via Antwerp and Philadelphia and
fastened to the scene of strife.
The Indians brought home made a
strong peace contingent at Pine Ridge,
while I fastened, with General Miles
appreciation, to visit Sitting Bull in
person, feeling sure that my old enemy
and later friend would listen to my ad-
vice. The fact that I was willing to
take the risk myself alarmed some well
mea aning philanthropists, who OWNED
a sinister motive in my action, ard
those who were crying strongest for
Sitting Bulls suppression now claimed
that his person was endangered by the
bloodthirsty voyager-I, the one who