Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (20 page)

Gradually, more information about Father De Smet’s visit was obtained from some of the peace chiefs, Running Antelope and Bear’s Rib in particular, who had been kept informed by Charles Galpin, one of the traders with whom the Lakota did business, and a man they respected. Galpin was married to a Lakota woman who was half Hunkpapa and half Two Kettle, and he was trusted to tell them the truth.

A week after his latest raid, word reached Sitting Bull that De Smet was indeed on his way. While he waited for the priest, he tried to imagine why the Jesuit would want to talk to him, and what, if anything,
the priest could do to ensure that this peace was somehow different from all those that had gone before—a fair one that would be upheld not just by the Lakota but by the white man, too.

They were camped on the Yellowstone, not far from the Powder, and on the edge of Oglala territory. Already, Sitting Bull was hearing news that Red Cloud was beginning to waver in his determination to continue his war against the white army, although he also heard that Crazy Horse was as determined as ever to drive the whites out of Lakota land.

The camp was a large one, including bands under the leadership of Black Moon, Four Horns, and Red Horn. Gall was there, and so was No Neck. At least, Sitting Bull thought, I will not be the only one who thinks as I do. And if I have doubts, I can talk to men who will understand.

Runners announced the imminent arrival of the mission and carried information that Running Antelope, Bear’s Rib, and Two Bears were among the Lakota providing protection for De Smet and his followers. Sitting Bull also learned that Galpin was along, with his wife, and that they would serve as interpreters for the conference. At least he could feel confident that his words would be accurately explained to the Black Robe, and that he would know exactly what the missionary told him. But the presence of the peace chiefs was not reassuring.

On June 19, Four Horns sent dozens of warriors in full paint and regalia out to meet the missionary. As the procession drew close to the village, the lodges emptied as almost every man, woman, and
child in the nearly seven hundred tipis turned out to witness the arrival. Many of them had heard of De Smet, but few had ever seen him.

Sitting Bull stood in the rear ranks, watching the approach of a fluttering banner, decorated with gold stars and the figure of a woman in a long, flowing robe. The vanguard headed straight for Sitting Bull’s lodge and stopped directly in front of it. Sitting Bull stepped forward, edging through the
akicita
who had been providing protection for the Jesuit, and greeted him with a raised hand.

Orders were given to break up the crowd, and the
akicita
sent the people scurrying back to their lodges. The missionary was escorted into Sitting Bull’s tipi and food and water were brought in.

The chiefs let the weary travelers rest and talked among themselves, trying to anticipate what he might have to say. “I think we should let him tell us, instead of trying to guess ourselves,” Sitting Bull suggested. “When he is rested, we will meet with him, and then we will learn what he has to say to us.”

It was near sundown before De Smet was rested enough to greet his hosts. Sitting Bull, Black Moon, Four Horns, and No Neck comprised the official greeting party, and they entered Sitting Bull’s lodge to find the priest prepared to talk, and the Galpins ready to translate for them.

Sitting Bull took the lead and told De Smet how the war between the Lakota and the white man was the white man’s doing. “I have killed many whites,” he began, “but not without provocation. They have taken our land, they have killed our
women and children, they have come where they were not welcome and told those who have always lived there that they would have to leave. I am willing to listen to what you have to say, and I am prepared to be peaceful, but not if it means giving up everything my people need to live.”

De Smet listened respectfully, occasionally asking a question or two, gathering information for the formal discussions scheduled to begin the following day.

As usual, the next day’s ceremony began with a pipe. Four Horns lit it, raised it above his head, gestured toward the earth and the cardinal points, then handed it to Father De Smet, who smoked as if he had been doing it all his life. From the Jesuit, the pipe made its way around the council from chief to chief. They were meeting in a council lodge that had been built by combining several ordinary lodges into a single structure. Even so it was cramped, as there were so many participants.

Four Horns then invited De Smet to speak. The Jesuit framed his remarks carefully and delivered them with deliberation, pausing periodically to allow Galpin to translate for the Lakota.

“I am not here to make peace,” he said. “I cannot do this, but it is something I want to see happen. I think it would be a good thing if you were to meet with the peace commissioners at Fort Rice.”

At the mention of the hated post, Sitting Bull grew tense, but he said nothing. De Smet continued, “This war is a terrible thing. It is terrible for the whites and it is terrible for the Lakota. The cruelty
is causing pain to everyone involved, and it would be a good thing if it could be ended now.”

He paused to wait for the translation, looking around at the assembled chiefs. He did not seem afraid, only concerned that he be understood clearly, and Sitting Bull was impressed.

“I wish, I beg,” the Jesuit went on, “that you bury your hatred. Try to forgive the white man for the cruelty he has shown you, as he will forgive you.” He stopped then to look at the banner bearing the likeness of the Virgin Mary. Indicating it, he said, “I will leave this holy emblem of peace with you as a token of my sincere wish and a reminder that you must consider what is best for the Lakota people. And I think peace is what is best.”

Black Moon took the pipe now, puffed it several times, then responded on behalf of all the chiefs. “I know you mean what you say. But you should know that there are many hatreds. There has been much suffering, and it is the white man who has caused it all. Every place we look, there are forts full of Long Knives. Our forest is destroyed, our buffalo slaughtered. The earth is stained red all across the plains, from both white and Indian blood. This is because we have been lied to again and again by the white man. If we could know for sure that we would be lied to no more, in time we might be able to forget what has gone before, and put it behind us. But I do not know if we can forget because I do not know if we can ever believe what the white man says.”

Sitting Bull then took the pipe and made his speech. “I hope,” he said, “that you are successful.

But I do not think so. We will send people to the council, and we will accept whatever is decided, so long as it is fair and the white man means to honor his promises.”

He paid his respects then to De Smet and the Galpins and resumed his seat, only to jump up again immediately. “I have forgotten a few things I wanted to say,” he told them. “I think the white man should know that we will not sell or surrender any part of our lands. The white man must stop destroying the trees along the Missouri River, and most of all, he must give up his forts and go back to his own territory. It is the forts, more than anything else, that insult us and provoke us.”

The discussion went on for several more hours, but everything that mattered to either side had already been said. When the council session ended, De Smet once again slept in Sitting Bull’s lodge, and on the following morning, with the
akicita
once more providing security, De Smet prepared to return to Fort Rice.

Sitting Bull rode in the procession only as far as the Powder River. De Smet paid his respects, and Sitting Bull reminded him of what had been said the day before. When the Jesuit continued on his way, he was not accompanied by any of the significant chiefs in the war faction.

Whether De Smet realized it or not, it was a clear signal from Sitting Bull and the other war chiefs that they held little hope for the advancement of peace by the commissioners.

Missouri River Valley
1868

G
ALL HAD BEEN SENT TO THE TREATY
conference at Fort Rice and he had stated the Hunkpapa case. Then he had signed the treaty, without realizing that not a single one of his concerns, and those of the other Hunkpapa chiefs, had been addressed by the agreement.

In effect, nothing changed. The forts remained in place on the Missouri, and plans were taking shape for a reservation for the Lakota people. The treaty was concerned primarily with resolving the Powder River war. The government agreed to abandon the forts in Oglala territory, including C. F. Smith, but that meant nothing to the Hunkpapa, whose lands were far to the east. Nevertheless, Crazy Horse led a war party which burned the fort to the ground while the whites who relinquished it were still close enough to see the pall of smoke from its ruin.

But the treaty was devastating in its implications. By signing on behalf of the Hunkpapas, Gall had bound them to settle on a reservation and to end all hostilities against the white invaders—or so, at least, was the government’s interpretation. The white officials could not get it through their heads that Lakota democracy was far more comprehensive than their own version of government, and that no Lakota could bind anyone but himself to do anything, or to refrain from doing anything. Although it was doubtful Gall understood the implications of the treaty, since the peace commissioners themselves, in whose language the document had been composed, were not sure of its interpretation, it would eventually be used to justify continuing hostilities against the Hunkpapas for violating its provisions.

That Sitting Bull neither knew nor cared what the treaty said was made perfectly clear to the white occupiers when, less than two months after the treaty had been signed, he led yet another war party, this time more than one hundred and fifty warriors strong, against the hated Fort Buford. But, as in previous raids, the casualties inflicted on the Long Knives were light, only three soldiers killed. The Hunkpapa had to console themselves with the herd of beef cattle they ran off.

It was time to address questions of organization within the Hunkpapa councils. Four Horns was still the most influential and respected leader, but he was getting older now, and the younger warriors were beginning to look to someone closer to their own age for guidance. They preferred that their
leader be battle-hardened but not battle weary, a man who would be willing to lead them against the forts and wage war as the Hunkpapa had always done, against all invaders, red or white.

Four Horns knew that he was probably due to step aside, but he worried that the government, which seemed cumbersome and nearly unworkable, had to be redesigned. He knew that peace was going to be the central concern, as Running Antelope and Bear’s Rib continued to draw new adherents. And since Red Cloud was increasingly inclined to make some sort of peace with the white man, Crazy Horse was growing more and more influential among the Oglala.

What the Hunkpapa needed, as Four Horns saw it, was someone like Crazy Horse, a man who could lead by example, who was not afraid to fight, and who could inspire others by his own conduct. That man, clearly, was Sitting Bull, and Four Horns decided that he would do what he could to persuade the other chiefs to recognize his nephew as the principal leader of all the Hunkpapa.

Such a thing was almost inconceivable. The idea of a single chief was alien to Lakota thinking, and ran counter to hundreds of years of tradition. Four Horns was contemplating nothing short of a revolution in Lakota governance, and he was not sure he could pull it off. But more and more, he was inclined to believe that it was the only hope the Hunkpapa had.

Complicating matters further was the fact that of the four Hunkpapa shirt-wearers, only Four Horns himself had not fallen into disrepute. Running
Antelope had stolen another man’s wife, Red Horn had outdone him in infamy by stealing two wives, and Loud-Voiced Hawk had stabbed another Hunkpapa to death. Since the institution of the shirt-wearers, they had been the primary source of authority for the tribe, but three of the four had forfeited their right to be shirt-wearers at all. Crazy Horse, an Oglala shirt-wearer, had married another man’s wife without permission, and had thus relinquished his shirt in recognition of the strict code of behavior to which all shirt-wearers were expected to adhere. But among the Hunkpapa, things were so lax that none of the three miscreants had been removed from office, nor had they volunteered to step down.

That Running Antelope was a peace chief was all the more reason to remove him, because the highest councils of government had to speak with a single voice. If they were fighting among themselves, they would dissipate their authority, leaving the tribe directionless at the most perilous time in its history.

But his plan, no matter how well conceived, would not work if Sitting Bull would not go along with it. He had to convince his nephew first to accept the mantle with which he proposed to drape him. If Sitting Bull refused, then there was nothing more to be done, because as far as Four Horns could see, there was no one else capable of shouldering the enormous burden. Of all the Lakota, only Crazy Horse was Sitting Bull’s match, but with increasing frequency, Crazy Horse went off into the wilderness by himself. Mystical by
inclination, he was also solitary, and Four Horns knew that he would never consent to do what he had in mind. As a consequence, it was Sitting Bull or no one.

Four Horns waited for the right moment. He did not want to risk alienating Sitting Bull, because he might not be given another chance. When the two of them were off alone on a hunting trip, Four Horns saw his opportunity. They had been tracking a deer for nearly an hour, but the animal had gotten away, and Four Horns suggested they rest by the bank of a creek and let the horses graze a bit.

While they sat in the grass, Four Horns opened the discussion indirectly. “You know that all the Lakota people are divided on whether or not to honor the treaty with the white man,” he began.