Louis S. Warren (111 page)

8. Industrial Status Report for Standing Bear, Wounded Knee District, Allotment No. 936, 1913, Pine Ridge archives, copy in author's possession. My thanks to Arthur Amiotte for these documents. For a description of the cabin see Hilda Neihardt,
Black Elk and Flaming
Rainbow: Personal Memories of the Lakota Holy Man and John Neihardt
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1995), 50–51. Average income statistic from Derks,
Value of a Dollar,
123.

9. “Even today, among the Lakotas, relatives are people who
act
like relatives and consider themselves to be related.” Raymond J. DeMallie, in James R. Walker, Lakota Society (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 5–7. Quote from p. 6.

10. Charles Eastman,
From the Deep Woods to Civilization
(1916; rprt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 125.

11. Amiotte interview, June 21, 2003; Amiotte, personal communication to author, March 24, 2005.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
COWBOYS, INDIANS, AND THE ARTFUL DECEPTIONS OF RACE

1. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
259.

2. M. B. Bailey, ed.,
Official Souvenir, Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of
the World
1896
(Buffalo, NY: Courier Co., 1896).

3. Warren G. Vincent to H. H. Vincent, March 1, 1890, M Cody L Box 1, DPL-WHR.

4. Walker,
Clio's Cowboys,
131.

5. Harry Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” typescript, BBHC.

6. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 9.

7. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 10–11.

8. Webb, “Buffalo Bill, Saint or Devil?,” 6.

9. C. L. Daily to “Dear Folks,” [no month] 22, 1889, copy in BBHC.

10. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
261.

11. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
264.

12. BBWW 1893 program, 27–28.

13. Arthur Frank Wertheim and Barbara Bair, eds.,
The Papers of Will Rogers
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 1: 222–23.

14. C. L. Daily to “Dear Folks,” n.d. [1889], BBHC.

15. For Pedro Esquivel, see Bailey,
Official Souvenir,
14; for gauchos, BBWW 1893 program, 55.

16. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony ‘Tony' Esquivel,” Oct. 1, 1969, in Clara Esquivel Parker Papers, MS 92 DPL-WHR; Russell,
Lives and Legends,
317, 332, 340, 372, 377; also Yost,
Call of the Range.

17. Bailey,
Official Souvenir,
18; for Tony Esquivel as Mexican, see Yost,
Buffalo Bill,
208; Russell,
Lives and Legends,
377; “Serious Shooting Accident at the ‘Wild West,' ”
Evening
News
(London), July 14, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.

18. Bailey,
Official Souvenir,
14, 18;
Route Book, Buffalo Bill's Wild West
1899
(Buffalo: Matthews-Northrup Co., 1899), 7;
Official Route and Roster of the Buffalo Bill's Wild West
Season of
1902
(Los Angeles: Los Angeles Printing Co., 1902), 9, BBHC; Russell,
Lives
and Legends,
442.

19. Vincente Oropeza to Frank Hammitt, Feb. 16, 1895, Misc. Files, “Hammett,” BBHC; Russell,
Lives and Legends,
377.

20. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony ‘Tony' Esquivel.”

21. George Johnson to “Dear Brother Justus and Sister Gussie,” June 21, 1892, Nebraska Prairie Museum, Holdredge, NE.

22. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
264; BBWW 1903 program (London: Weiners, 1903), 4.

23. Irving told a fabulous story about running away from home as a little boy with the army and ending up at Pine Ridge. Yost,
Buffalo Bill,
186–87.

24. For W. G. Bullock, see Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk, 174, 183; and Spring, Cheyenne and Black
Hills Stage and Express Routes,
24–25, 34, 108. Billy Bullock gives a concise and apparently truthful account of his life in “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,”
Topical Times,
July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS. Also, Russell,
Lives and Legends,
308, 317.

25. Russell,
Lives and Legends,
308.

26. Bennie Irving photograph is in J. Wojtowicz,
Buffalo Bill Collector's Guide,
68.

27. Havighurst,
Annie Oakley of the Wild West,
57.

28. “Camp Sketches—No. 9, John Nelson,”
Topical Times,
Aug. 27, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, 54, MS 58, NSHS.

29. “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,”
Topical Times,
July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.

30. Rocky Bear's history is in Hyde,
Red Cloud's Folk,
114, 259. His relationship to Ella Bissonett is in Yost,
Buffalo Bill,
186. He was in the show contingent in 1888, 1889, 1893, and other years. See Supplemental Agreement, April 10, 1888, in Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–89, vol. 5, pp. 30–32, Pine Ridge, RG 75, NARA-CPR; George LeRoy Brown to WFC and Salsbury, April 19, 1893, Misc. Css. Received, 1891–95 A–C, Folder B May 2– Nov. 23, 1895, Pine Ridge, RG 75, NARA-CPR; Yost,
Buffalo Bill,
211.

31. BBDC 1883; BBWW 1883 program, n.p.; BBWW 1888 program (Hartford, CT: Calhoun, 1888), 28.

32. Eric Lott,
Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Toll,
Blacking Up,
200.

33. “Won a White Bride,”
New York Times,
Aug. 19, 1886, p. 3; “Pushaluck's Romance,”
New
York Times,
Aug. 15, 1886; “Refused to Tie the Knot,”
New York Times,
Dec. 10, 1886, reports on the refusal of Jersey City's “Justice Weed” to marry a Wild West show Indian named Cloud Foot and Annette Copeland, 17, of Brooklyn.

34. “Glasgow,”
Glasgow
Weekly Mail,
Jan. 9, 1892, p. 2.

35. Clara Esquivel Parker, “Anthony (Tony) Esquivel.”

36. “Camp Sketches—No. 5, Billy Bullock,” in
Topical Times,
July 30, 1887, clipping in JCG Scrapbook, MS 58, NSHS.

37. For Black Elk see DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 252–54; for White Eyes, see Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.

38. Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.

39. There is one account that disputes the authenticity of show Indians. Gordon “Pawnee Bill” Lillie, who became a showman rival to Cody, began his entertainment career with Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883. According to Lillie, his job was “to do all the interpreting” for the Pawnees, “and even to make up as an Indian myself and go on with them.” Glenn Shirley, Pawnee Bill: A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1958), 99.

40. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
252.

41. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
254.

42. Amos Bad Heart Bull and Helen H. Blish,
A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 450–61; Gordon MacGregor, with Royal B. Hassrick and William H. Henry,
Warriors Without Weapons: A Study of the Society and Personality Development of the Pine Ridge Sioux
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946), 38; DeMallie, “Teton,” 816.

43. Peter Iverson,
When Indians Became Cowboys: Native Peoples and Cattle Reaching in the
American West
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 59.

44. Iverson,
When Indians Became Cowboys,
73–76.

45. Iverson,
When Indians Became Cowboys,
73.

46. George LeRoy Brown to T. J. Morgan, June 17, 1893, in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 13, p. 119, NARA-CPR; H. D. Gallagher to Charles Foster, Oct. 19, 1889, RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–91, vol. 5, pp. 291–92, NARA-CPR; “Col. Cody's Motley Crowd,”
The Times
(Kansas City, Missouri), Oct. 19, 1896, NSS, 1896, DPL.

47. George LeRoy Brown to Kicking Bear, May 13, 1892, in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 12, pp. 325–26, NARA-CPR; George LeRoy Brown to John Shangrau, Aug. 9, 1892, RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 14, p. 227, NARA-CPR; G. L. Brown to WFC, Sept. 14, 1892, and G. L. Brown to WFC, Sept. 15, 1892, both in RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1892, vol. 15, first one on p. 82, other on p. 97, NARA-CPR.

48. Nate Salsbury to the Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1892, in no. 9249, Box 834, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA.

49. In 1906, Jacob White Eyes sold a beaded vest to a French acquaintance for ninety francs. Jacob White Eyes to Folco Baroncelli, Aug. 24, 1906, Palais du Roure, Avignon.

50. See exhibit 2 and exhibit 3 in Nate Salsbury to the Hon. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 1, 1892, in no. 9249, Box 834, Letters Received, 1881–1907, RG 75, NARA.

51. See Register 1883–1892, 226–28, Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, Scotland. Also George C. Crager to Curator Paton, Dec. 17, 1891, in files of the Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, Scotland.

52. After his sentencing, his sister, who was also with the show but who unfortunately remains anonymous in press accounts, handed him a bundle of apples. “The Assault on Buffalo Bill's Interpreter,”
Glasgow Evening News,
Jan. 4, 1892, p. 4; “Glasgow,”
Glasgow
Weekly Mail,
Jan. 9, 1892, p. 2; “ ‘Charging Thunder' Gets Thirty Days. ‘His Lemonade Was Mixed,' ”
Glasgow Evening News,
Jan. 12, 1892, p. 5; “Glasgow,”
Glasgow Weekly
Mail,
Jan. 16, 1892, p. 2; “ ‘Charging Thunder' Sent to Prison,”
Glasgow Weekly Herald,
Jan. 16, 1892, p. 7.

53. Madra,
Glasgow's Ghost Shirt.

54. Biolsi,
Organizing the Lakota,
20.

55. Standing Bear,
My People the Sioux,
242.

56. F. E. Leupp to U.S. Indian Agent, May 14, 1908, in 047 Fairs and Expositions, Box 162, RG 75, NARA-CPR; copy in “Petitions by BBWW Indians,” Association Files, BBHC.

57. Utley,
Lance and the Shield,
225–33. Nick Black Elk, who originally joined the show hoping to see the Holy Land whence Jesus came, recalled that when Queen Victoria met the Lakota performers, she said that they had “a Grandfather over there who takes care of you over there, but he shouldn't allow” the white people “to take you around as beasts to show the people.” DeMallie, Sixth Grandfather, 250. Black Elk's version of the meeting is highly dubious, but the point is less what Victoria said than how much Indians remembered and appreciated her words as a critique of U.S. Indian policy, something that had considerable weight coming from the sovereign of the world's largest empire.

58. For Red Cloud's request of a flag, see Red Cloud to Nate Salsbury, July 18, 1889, Box 1/6, NSP, YCAL 17.

59. U.S. Indian Agent to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 18, 1908, in 047 Fairs and Expositions, Box 162, BBWW, RG 75, NARA-CPR; copy in “Petitions from BBWW Indians,” Association Files, BBHC.

60. Charles S. McNichols to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Nov. 16, 1903, in “Encounter Between Sioux Indians of the Pine Ridge Agency, S. Dak, and a Sheriff's Posse of Wyoming,” Senate Document 128, 59th Congress, Jan. 27, 1904, 14. For a provocative analysis of the events at Lightning Creek, see Deloria,
Indians in Unexpected Places,
15–51.

61. A. P. Putnam to Governor Fenimore Chatterton, Nov. 10, 1903, in “Encounter Between Sioux Indians,” 5–7.

62. Two of the most outspoken critics of the government's failure to punish the murderers of Lightning Creek were veterans of Buffalo Bill's theatrical show and the Wild West, too: George Sword, Jack Red Cloud, “Statement to the Public by Pine Ridge Indians Relating to Late Trouble in Wyoming,” in “Encounter Between Sioux Indians,” 16. Bull and Blish,
A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux,
500–1; Roberta Carkeek Cheney,
Sioux
Winter Count: A
131-Year
Calendar of Events
(Happy Camp, CA: Naturegraph, 1998), 44; James R. Walker, Lakota Society, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 155.

63. U.S. Indian Agent to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, May 18, 1908, “Petitions by BBWW Indians,” Association Files, BBHC.

64. For Brown's education, see H. D. Gallagher to U.S. Indian Agent, Rosebud Agency, March 20, 1889, RG 75, Pine Ridge, Misc. Letters Sent, 1887–91, vol. 5, p. 193, NARA-CPR.

65. Warren G. Vincent to H. H. Vincent, March 1, 1890, M Cody L Box 1, DPL-WHR.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: BUFFALO BILL'S AMERICA

1. Russell,
Lives and Legends,
370–71.

2. Arabs from the Paris Hippodrome, then appearing at the Olympia Theater, visited the Wild West camp in London in 1887; Cossacks, or the Georgian horsemen who pretended to be Cossacks, were appearing in European circuses by the late 1880s. “Buffalo Bill's Wild West,”
Pictorial News,
Nov. 5, 1887, in WFC Scrapbook, Buffalo Bill Museum, Golden, CO; for Cossacks, see Irakli Makharadze and Akaki Chkhaidze,
Wild
West Georgians
(Tbilisi Georgia: New Media, n.d.), 1–2.

3. Oakley's memory is in Russell, Lives and Legends, 372; U.S. Army and circuses in Davis,
Circus Age,
78.

4. Burke,
Buffalo Bill from Prairie to Palace,
266.

5. WFC to Al Goodman, Aug. 25, 1891, in Foote,
Letters from Buffalo Bill,
37–38.

6. Foote,
Letters from Buffalo Bill,
40.

7. Nate Salsbury, “Wild West at Windsor,” typescript, n.d., in YCAL MSS 17, NSP.

8. Davis,
Circus Age,
10. In 1891, while the Wild West show was in Glasgow, Salsbury and Cody briefly installed “educated” elephants and a group of “Schuli warriors” from Africa. “Musical and Dramatic,”
Scottish Sport
(Glasgow), Jan. 22, 1892, p. 14.