Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 03 (23 page)

Scouts kept close watch on Custer for the two-month duration of the expedition, but there was no outright challenge to the column. When Custer returned, Sitting Bull was sorry that he hadn’t taken a stronger stand as soon as the destination of the troops became known. Custer trumpeted to the world the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, and the announcement triggered a flood of prospectors, and later, mining crews. And where the miners went, the merchants went—towns springing up like weeds overnight to accommodate the needs of the miners and freighters.

Crazy Horse, incensed by the desecration of
Paha Sapa,
had taken to leading small bands of Oglala in hit-and-run attacks on mining camps and the supply trains that constantly wound their way through the hills. But it was like trying to stop a flood with a single sponge. There were just too many whites pouring in, and when the Indian attacks increased in frequency, the military presence was augmented. It was an ever increasing spiral.

Sitting Bull had his hands full with other troubles in the Yellowstone valley. Settlements were springing up, and the railroad crews were making progress. And to add to the irritation, the hated Crows, who had their reservation and agency nearby, were increasing their presence in Hunkpapa hunting grounds.

It was beginning to seem to Sitting Bull as if he and his people were being attacked from all sides, and it was difficult to know where to concentrate his attention. As a holy man, he was concerned about the Black Hills; as a traditionalist, he cared about the Crows, his bitterest enemies; and as a Lakota, he cared about the influx of whites into every corner of Sioux territory.

Sitting Bull had been warring with the whites for so long now that he seemed to understand them better than any other Lakota war chief except Crazy Horse. But Crazy Horse was too much of a mystic and too solitary by disposition to do what Sitting Bull knew had to be done. It was important to marshal as much manpower as possible, and that meant reaching out to other peoples. As the
principal chief of the Hunkpapas, he had the prominence needed to approach other leaders, not just of the Lakota but of other tribes as well. With the number of Lakota now on the reservations, many of them disaffected but also many who believed as Red Cloud now did that accommodation was the only way to preserve themselves, allies had to be found to prosecute the full-scale war which Sitting Bull now believed to be inevitable.

The Hunkpapa had had the least to do with the whites, because of the seven Lakota tribes, their hunting grounds had, until recently, been the least disturbed by the invaders. As a consequence, the Hunkpapa had the greatest percentage of all Lakota bands living off the reservation. But Hunkpapas alone would not be enough. Even if all the disaffected treaty warriors were to band together with the nontreaty bands from all seven Lakota tribes, they would not be enough.

Sitting Bull knew that in order to wage the war on the scale he now believed necessary he needed as many warriors as he could get. The Cheyenne had long been allies, and with Sand Creek still a vivid memory, and the Washita a bitter reminder that being friendly and peaceful was no guarantee of protection against the predatory whites, they were likely candidates to join the alliance Sitting Bull planned to propose.

In early 1875, Sitting Bull sent word that there would be a grand sun dance and invited all those who wished to attend to meet on the banks of the Rosebud River near Muddy Creek. By early June,
hunting bands were pouring in from every direction. Four camp circles were established, one each for the Hunkpapa, the Oglala, the Miniconjou and Sans Arcs, and the Cheyenne.

As the bands arrived one by one, Sitting Bull was heartened by the turnout. Not only were the numbers of warriors greater than he had hoped, but the best of the war chiefs were there, too. The Oglala had Crazy Horse and Black Twin among their number, while the Miniconjou and Sans Arcs had Spotted Eagle, and the Cheyennes had Little Wolf and the famous warrior and holy man Ice.

These were the kind of men he needed, men who believed as he did and were as fiercely committed as he was to the preservation of the old ways and the defense of Lakota lands. As confident as he was in his own skills, he knew that he could not do what needed to be done by himself. He needed help, and these chiefs were the men he would have chosen himself to give that help.

When the people had gathered and the sun dance lodge had been constructed, Sitting Bull prepared to make his appeal to the assembled chiefs and warriors for intertribal unity. He knew that the future of his people depended on his success. He wanted to make an impression. They all knew of him, of his exploits in battle, of his accomplishments as a singer and musician, of his dedication as a holy man. But reputation alone would not be enough to sway his audience; he needed to seize them in a way no one ever had.

Ice had presented him with a magnificent black stallion, and Sitting Bull decided that it would be
just the right horse to ride for his grand entrance. He took great pains getting himself ready, applying his ceremonial paint and wearing a new warbonnet with a full trail of eagle feathers. The black stallion was daubed with white paint in bands and spots. Then Sitting Bull mounted up and rode toward the sun dance lodge, making a great circle.

The people began to press in from all sides as he made another circuit, then dismounted and leading the magnificent horse by the bridle began to dance. He sang songs he had composed especially for the occasion. By now the lodge was filled to overflowing, and Sitting Bull, knowing that he had the full attention of his audience, announced that he wanted two ceremonial pipes filled, one for the Lakota and one for the Cheyenne.

When the pipes were ready, he took both and resumed his dance, miming battle with the enemy. By now the audience was itself singing, and with a grand flourish, he wrapped his arms across his chest to signify that he had captured his enemies. A roar went up as Sitting Bull raised the pipes overhead in offering to the heavens.

Afterward Sitting Bull, Ice, Crazy Horse, and some of the other chiefs gathered in a council lodge. They all knew that war was coming soon, that it would be big, and that it would be pivotal. They were not yet sure when it would start or with whom it would be waged, but there was no doubt at all that it was coming.

“We all know,” Sitting Bull declared, “that we cannot trust the white man. He has said that we would have the Black Hills forever, and yet Long
Hair has gone there without our permission. He has said that we would have the land of the Powder River valley as long as the buffalo run, and now he builds his railroad there and kills the buffalo. He has said many things, but he has never said a true thing to the Lakota.”

The assembled chiefs nodded their heads in agreement as Sitting Bull continued, “If we want to save our lands, to have them—as is our right—for ourselves, we will have to work together. If it means making war on the white man together, then that is what we should do. I want nothing better than for the white man to go back where he came from and leave me in peace. If he would do this, then I would forever be a friend to him. If he did not bother me, he would never see me, never even know I am here. But always he makes promises and always he breaks them. He is like a child who misbehaves. You tell him to stop, and he says yes, he understands, and then he disobeys again. Again you tell him, and again he says yes, he will stop. And again he misbehaves.”

Once more, the chiefs indicated their agreement with a chorus of “How!”

But Sitting Bull was not finished yet. “Now he wants to take away not only our hunting grounds, but our sacred lands of
Paha Sapa.
This time, I think, it will not be enough to say stop. This time, I think, we will have to
make
him stop. We will have to do whatever we can to keep what is ours.”

But even as he spoke, the government was attempting to acquire the Black Hills. Pressure was brought to bear on the agency chiefs in an effort to
induce them to sell title to the area. If this could be managed, then the government would simply claim that the agency chiefs had acted on behalf of all the Lakota people, and that the land had been fairly acquired. But there was no real interest in being fair. Any excuse would do, and if no one could be persuaded to sell the Black Hills, then they would just have to be taken by force.

Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, long since ensconced in their own separate agencies, had been willing to make the deal proposed by the government. Red Cloud had tried to get more than the government offered, but even what he was asking was a pitiful fraction of the true worth of the territory in question. And any deal would ignore the fact that the land was sacred. But Red Cloud suspected that the Black Hills would be taken one way or another, and that the Lakota should get whatever they could. Anything at all was better than nothing. In the eyes of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, though, the Black Hills could not and must not be sold, not at any price.

Sitting Bull learned of the maneuverings. He was depressed by the news, and beginning to wonder if it was possible to hold onto the land, even if he managed to enlist every nonagency Indian on the plains.

He spent much time alone, trying to find some way to prevent the white man from taking the land. During long nights, sitting up on a hill overlooking his village, he mulled over his options, but they were few and unpredictable. He knew that some Indians had gone north, to Canada, where they
seemed to be well treated, left alone by the government of the Grandmother Country, allowed to live as they had always lived. The weather there was harsher, and the buffalo fewer, but at the rate the buffalo were disappearing from the plains south of the border, there was little reason to think that would continue to be the case much longer.

He also knew that the Cheyenne had occasionally gone as far south as Mexico, but what he heard of the land there did not appeal to him. It was hot and barren, the buffalo few, and such a move would imperil the Lakota way of life every bit as much as capitulation to the demands of the United States would. It seemed that no matter which way he turned, he found himself staring at a blank wall. And he felt as if he were virtually alone in his understanding of just how dire the circumstances were. It was true that other chiefs were opposed to the treaties, opposed to the white man taking the land, dedicated to the old ways. But only Crazy Horse seemed to see things as clearly as Sitting Bull himself, and two men, no matter how valiant, could not stem the white tide.

Desperate for an answer to a question that only he and Crazy Horse appeared to be trying to address, he rode off to be alone in late summer. He spent several days in isolation, fasting and building a sweat lodge for himself, spending hours at a time trying to pierce the veil of uncertainty that seemed to hide the way into the future.

On the fourth day of his fast, he climbed to the top of a nearby hill before daybreak and watched the sun climb over the horizon. All day long he
watched the sun, hoping that somehow it would communicate to him the right path to follow.

By late afternoon, thirsty and hungry, his eyes filmed over by a brilliant, gauzy haze, he heard a sound like thunder. It seemed that the sky was clouding over, and the haze grew dark and thick. For a moment he thought it was going to rain, but as he listened, he realized the sound was not thunder at all but buffalo, thousands upon thousands of them, and they were heading his way.

Rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrist, he tried to see them, but instead watched as the sun disappeared in a cloud of thick dust swirling up from the advancing herd. A moment later a bull broke over the next ridge, and he watched in awe as wave after wave of the huge animals followed the great bull in the lead. Then he felt stark terror grip him as he realized that the bull was a skeleton, and as the waves of animals followed it down the hillside into the valley below, the flesh seemed to melt from their bones and vanish in puffs of thick, black smoke. It was this smoke, rather than dust kicked up by the buffalo hooves, that was blotting out the sun.

He knew that he was watching the end of the Lakota people, and that that end would come soon unless he could find a way to prevent it.

Rosebud River Valley
1876

B
Y
1875, S
ITTING BULL WAS
well known in Washington. Men he had never heard of had heard of him and regarded him as something akin to the devil. His reputation among the enemies of the Hunkpapa, such as the Crows, Shoshone, and Arikara, was such that they too regarded him as death incarnate. His reputation among the Lakota was more accurate, but no less awe inspiring. This complex set of factors had combined to make him the focus of policy making among the politicians and the Indian Bureau.

That he deserved his notoriety is beyond dispute. It is only the accuracy of these impressions that can be called into question. The Indian Bureau, under constant pressure to resolve the “Indian Problem” by any means necessary, quite naturally looked for a reasonable alibi for its failures. Rather than examine the reasonableness of
its own policy and that of the government in general, the Bureau chose to make Sitting Bull the scapegoat for virtually every incident involving the Lakota. Similarly, the Crows and other enemies of the Lakota who had been dealt with rather harshly by Sitting Bull, and who had reason to hate him, blamed him for their misfortunes, never losing the opportunity to blame him for violent confrontations between whites and Indians.

Sitting Bull was not without enemies among the Lakota themselves, either. Some, such as Red Cloud, had decided that the path of least resistance was the only way to ensure Lakota survival. In order to maintain their own influence among the treaty Indians and with the white politicians and soldiers, such men availed themselves of every chance to paint Sitting Bull in the worst possible colors. Defaming him ensured their own continued power, and while there is no doubt that some of these chiefs were motivated by the best of intentions, their methods are somewhat less than admirable. Other Lakota were envious of his power and influence and did their best to undermine him.