Frontier Reminiscences.
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Frontier Reminiscences.

Frontier Reminiscences.
_____

SATANK AND GEN. HARNEY--WHAT A
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE SAID OF
JOHN EVANS--THE SETTLEMENT OF
THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE.

Written for THE TIMES.
    During the summer of the preceding year Satank, with a party of Kiowas, had made a dash at Fort Larned and succeeded in capturing a number of artillery horses, together with their saddles, etc., and, burning the bridge across Pawnee Forks to delay pursuit, crossed to the south of the Arkansas, at that time nearly a terra incognita, whose low sand hills were invested by imagination with so many terrors that neither troops nor citizens and very rarely scouts or hunters cared to confront them with his plunder. As the stock were quite fine American horses and their equipments nearly new, the bright brass mountings being peculiarly to the Indian taste, they had evidently taken every possible care of them, and Satank each morning rode one to treaty, and one of the camp followers noticing that he rode a fresh horse and apparently used a different saddle each day, mentioned the fact in a loud enough tone to call the attention of the commissioners, observing as well, he "reckoned he did it out of aggravation."
    General Harney instantly jumped to his feet, and, demanding some one to hand him a pistol, exclaimed, "D--n the rascal; I'll teach him to put on airs; I'll shoot him where he sits."
    Interference on the part of the other commissioners gradually appeased the irate general, and quiet being resumed Satank, who was seated on one of the horses at the time, with one leg thrown carelessly around the horn of the saddle, quietly turned his head over his right shoulder, and, whilst directly facing the General, cried out, in good English, "Shoot, if you want to; Who's afraid?" Then jumping from the saddle he pushed through the crowd, and, in his own language, in a loud voice, said:
    "Do you come here to threaten? Do you come here to fight? If so, let us know at once, for I have not come here because I am afraid. You say your warriors are like the grass for numbers, and like the grass, too, if one lot falls others spring up in their places. Now with us it is not so. When my warriors are killed there are none to replace them; but my men fear no danger when I tell them the way; nor do they want lots of wagons to follow them on the war trail, so they move quick and fight when they want. If you are too strong we keep on traveling till you are weak, and then we turn. The country from the Arkansas to the staked plain is a big one, and your horses can never catch our ponies, so if you want to fight say so, but do not sit and threaten us as if we were squaws or children. When you sent runners to me I came at once in good faith to see you and talk to you, and try to fix it so that my young men fight yours no more, and this I want to do now. I am not mad any more. Satantee said he would not come, and now you say you can not treat with us unless the white prisoners in his hands are first given up, for Satantee is head chief of the Kiowas, and all our prisoners are under his control. Now I'll show you how a Kiowa acts when he gives you his word in good faith that he wants to make treaty. Satantee and the white women are on the Medicine now. You send little wagon (ambulance) with one of your young men to drive, and then if one of my warriors will go with me we will go to Satantee's camp and either kill him in his own lodge or get the captives from him and bring them in."
    As he concluded he turned towards where a bunch of Kiowa braves were standing. Twenty or more instantly moved forward, as if to offer their services, but Kicking Bird sprang in advance of the rest, saying, "I'll go!" to which his chief tersely replying, "It is good," and a Coloradan having volunteered to drive the ambulance, in fifteen or twenty minutes they had left the camp on their hazardous journey.
    All offers to the Cheyennes and Arapahoes were continually met by references to the attack at Sand creek, and after obtaining all information in their power the commissioners decided that the attack was so unjustifiable that it should be justly settled for by government, even if they were unsuccessful at the present time in concluding treaties with them; and knowing it to be impracticable to offer any other recompense than a pecuniary one, wished a schedule drawn up, showing the respective tribe losses, to serve as a basis on which to found a recommendation for congressional action. The secretaries from Washington attending the commission doubting their ability to furnish such schedule, I was requested to undertake the service, and Col. Wm. Bent offering his services as interpreter, I consented to do so. On the next morning, the squaws in the meantime having erected a large council lodge out of buffalo hides, Bent and myself proceeded thither, when we found about a dozen of the chiefs, head men and medicine men of the tribes assembled and seated in a circle around a small fire in the center of the lodge. After uttering the exclamation "Ugh!" in a guttural tone, they seated themselves closer together, making room for us in the circle, and, loading a pipe formed from a species of red clay, commenced passing it around the circle, each merely taking a few whiffs, evidently as a matter of form. After the pipe had thus been passed three times, including us as well as themselves in its circuit, then, although in perfect silence, they turned their eyes in such an inquiring manner towards Bent (who was well known to all present, having twice married into the Cheyenne tribe), that he at once proceeded to tell them how they intended to act towards them, impressing upon their minds that any recompense that could be made them, if government would allow any at all, would be by money alone, and that it could only cover their actual losses in material and stock, excepting where a warrior or head of a lodge was killed. For the death of wives and children they were to expect nothing, telling them plainly that the amount of money they may in the future receive would depend greatly upon their actual loss by death of warriors over twenty-one years of age at Sand creek.
    After a consultation of a few seconds among themselves, a number of bundles of little sticks were handed to me, and it was explained that these bundles represented the actual count of the tribes on their arrival at Sand creek, when a census was taken, and although the Indians had no knowledge of enumeration, yet from their taking a stick for each separate warrior the number would be correct. They then handed us another set of bundles similar in appearance, stating them to be a census of the tribes when they arrived at the treaty ground. On actual count there was a difference of twenty-three--of these they accounted for six as the preponderance of deaths over those who had arrived at maturity in the past year, leaving seventeen--or fourteen Cheyennes and three Arapahoes--as the warriors they lost in Chivington's attack. As he had reported killing over 400, the extraordinary discrepancy between the two accounts led even Bent to believe that some mistake must have been made; but in order to prove they were correct they accounted for each one by name, and when Bent a few days later read the list in open treaty and requested any one of the tribe if he could think of any others killed, and omitted from the list through error, to mention their names then, or any time of the treaty, no additional ones were ever named.
    A schedule was now prepared, every head of a lodge being specified by name, together with the losses he had sustained, and a total of $75,000 obtained--a specific valuation of $75 being put on the lodges and material, and $50 on each pony. This schedule (for which I received the formal thanks of the commission, which was, with their report, filed with the secretary of the interior) having been favorably received by the commission, I may now state was eventually laid before the senate of the United States for final action. Before taking such action, however, Senators Wilson (pro tem. Vice President of the United States), and Doolittle and Congressman Ross were appointed a joint committee on Indian affairs and instructed to proceed to Colorado, and personally investigate all the circumstances alluded to in the report of the commissioners. This they did, going to Sand creek, Denver, Lyons, etc., receiving the testimony of over 100 witnesses, of all grades in society, and in their report recommending the immediate payment of the $75,000, severely condemned the action of Chivington, deprecated the sentiments of hostility that apparently pervaded all classes of the community, stating that whilst investigating Indian matters they had unfortunately been compelled to examine many witnesses whose evidence was of a most prevaricating character; but they regretted to state they had never yet examined a witness who prevaricated so much as John Evans, Governor of Colorado, and finished by recommending the War Department to bring Chivington to trial.
    It need hardly be stated that on receipt of this report the governorship of the territory of Colorado knew Evans no more, and a copy of the report having been forwarded to army headquarters was returned indorsed by General Grant, expressing his regret that upon an examination of the records he found it impossible to bring General Chivington to trial before a military court, as his commission as a brigadier general in the volunteer forces of the United States expired three days before the attack was made by his direction on the Indians at Sand Creek, so that at the time of such attack Chivington was a civilian.
    The severity of this report caused great excitement in Colorado, Chivington and his friends declaring that though the government condemned, the residents of Colorado would nearly unanimously sustain his action, and so vociferous were they in their assertions, receiving such general support from the press that outsiders were generally led to believe them. At length, having by continued assertion and re-assertion induced themselves apparently to believe their own statements, they at the next election ran a Sand Creek ticket, with Shoup for Governor and Chivington as member of Congress (hoping at that time to get Colorado admitted as a State,) when the quite [sic] sentiment of the people was expressed through the ballot box in so determined a manner that the election proved their political funeral, their defeat being of a most signal character.
                                                                                                    J. W. T.


Source:

J. W. T., "Frontier Reminiscences," Aspen Weekly Times, Aspin, Pitkin County, Colorado, Saturday, 13 August, 1881, page 1.

Created August 5, 2007; Revised August 5, 2007
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