Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-08-17

and distrusts of our present profession OF
friendship and good will were portrayed in
colors so vivid and language so terse that
admiration and surprise would have kept US
silent had not shame and humiliation done
SO. That which made this arraignment
more telling was that it often came from
the lips of men who are our friends and who
had hoped against hope that the day might
come when their wrongs would be redressed.
Sioux Had to Like 1t.
Since the Sioux didn't have much
choice in the matter, they signed the
treaty offered them. Here's what
another historian says about it (not
an Indian historian, but a white his
torian). George E. Hyde, author of
RED Clouds Folk-A History of the
Oglala Sioux Indians" writes:
But the object had been attained at last,
and under the cloud of war the government
had taken the Black Hills. the Powder River
lands and the Bighorn country. The pre-
tense of formal agreement and fair pay.
ment which congress had devised to veil
this act of robbery did not even deceive the
Indians. The chiefs knew that they were
being robbed and that they were forced to
sign away their lands. Here are beef -four
and blankets tsaid the United States) for
your lands in Laramie Plains and between
the forks of the Platte which we took from
you before 1865: and here (said the United
States) are the same beef. flour and blan-
kets for your lands In Nebraska which we
took before 1870; and (said the United
States. with an air of vast generosity here
are the same beef. -four and blankets for
the Black Hills. the Powder River and the
Bighorn lands which we are now taking
from you. In all fairness. that is very near
the true meaning Of the agreement" of
1876. by means of which these last lands
were taken from the Sioux.
So the Sioux were finally settled on
greatly reduced reservation with
in the present states of North and
South Dakota. But even then the
Great White Father wasn't through
with them. In 1888 another COM
mission went to the Standing Rock
reservation to swing the cession of
II million acres of Sioux lands at
fixed price of so cents an acre Gan
outrageous robbery" Stanley YES
tai, biographer of Sitting Bull, calls
it) and break up the great Sioux
reservation into smaller ones. Sit
ting Bull lined up the chiefs against
it, then went to Washington where he
succeeded in getting the price raised
to SIPS an acre.
The next year another commission
came to Standing Rock to bargain
with the Sioux at the new price but
found themselves blocked at every
turn by Sitting Bull. Finally by
making various promises (many of
which were never kept, incident
ally) they managed to get enough
chiefs to agree to the sale. So, in
the words of Vestal, "the cession
was signed, the great Sioux Reser-
walton was only memory. 1t was
the death of a nation" Among the
promises that were not kept was one
about supplying rations to the Sioux,
penned up on their reduced reserva-
tions, and in the winter of 189O-91
that broken promise bore bitter
fruit. For the Sioux, suffering from
hunger and disillusionment, became
easy victims to the apostles of the
Ghost Dance and before that excite
ment was over the shameful story
of the massacre at Wounded Knee
had been written on one of the
"black pages which Secretary
IckeS mentions.
AS indicated previously some of
the other "black pages" bear the
stories of our dealings with the Nez
Perces, the Modocs and the Poncas.
That is why it is likely that any
member of those tribes, as we'll as
the Sioux, who reads the secretary's
statement about "a fixed policy
based upon the principle of free
purchase and sale in dealings be-
tween the native inhabitants of the
land and the white Immigrant" will
probably smile-and there won't be
much humor in that smile!