The Wild Frontier (16 page)

Washington State territorial governor Isaac Stevens in 1855 encouraged the Nez Perce, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Yakima Indians to give up most of the land they occupied in exchange for reservation land, homes, schools, horses, cattle, and annuities. He promised that they would be able to stay on their old land for 2 to 3 years after the treaty was ratified. The Indians agreed. Twelve days later, Stevens declared the Indian land open to homesteading. The Yakima War started soon after because of the broken promise.
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The Apache chief Mangas Coloradas agreed in 1863 to meet with General Joseph West. He was immediately seized and delivered the next day to the general. West let it be known to the guards that night that he did not want the chief to awake to another day, because he had left a trail of blood for 500 miles. A witness, a miner named Connor, stated that the guards heated their bayonets in the fire, applied them to the chief’s feet and legs, and when he jumped up to protest, fired 4 shots into his head, killing him. General West conducted an investigation, which concluded that Mangas Coloradas had made 3 efforts to escape and was shot on the third attempt.
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A Sioux war party under Sitting Bull saw some soldiers camped along the Powder River in 1865. Some of the young warriors rode to them under a flag of truce to see if they could get some tobacco and sugar. The
soldiers waited until the Indians were in easy rifle range, then fired, killing and wounding some of the Indians. The survivors were able to steal some of the soldiers’ horses before retreating.
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After the Battle of the Washita in 1867, the Indians fled. Two Kiowa chiefs, Satanta and Lone Wolf, approached General Philip Henry Sheridan to try to make peace. He put them under arrest and sent word to the Kiowa by Satanta’s son that the 2 would hang unless the tribe came into the fort. The tribe came in.
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The next year, Custer, under Sheridan’s command, went out on a supposed peace mission to the Cheyenne. He invited their chiefs to his camp. When they came, he seized 3 of them. He then prepared a tree and ropes to hang them unless the tribe would carry out his demands, which were to surrender 2 settler women captives and to bring the tribe into the post. The women captives were released, and Custer accepted the tribe’s promise to come to the post when the grass was green enough for traveling. They either did or didn’t keep their promise, depending on whom you believe. Everyone agrees, however, that Custer kept his captives. Two of them were later killed by their guards.
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I
T IS
not surprising that none of the presidents of the United States before 1890, the date of the Wounded Knee Massacre, was an Indian advocate. Many of them fought against the Indians. It is unlikely that this experience was helpful to the Indians during their administrations. Certainly Washington and Jackson said some harsh things about them, and Jackson did some harsh things to them. George Washington fought against them and for the British in the French and Indian War and was at the battle in 1755 where General Braddock and 1,500 British were killed by Indians allied with the French.
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He fought against them again in the American Revolution and ordered the Iroquois country destroyed because of their depredations against settlers in their area. William Henry Harrison fought against the Indians as early as his 1794 victory on the Miami River. He fought the Shawnee and other tribes in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. Two years later he fought the British and their Indian allies at the Battle of the Thames. Andrew Jackson fought against the Creeks in 1813 and against the Seminoles and other tribes in 1818. Zachary Taylor fought the Shawnee in the War of 1812, the Sauk and Fox tribes in the Black Hawk War starting in 1832, and the Seminoles in 1837. Even Abraham Lincoln served briefly in the Illinois militia in 1832 during the Black Hawk War, but he did not see combat. The
Santee Sioux Uprising in 1862 and the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 both occurred during his administration.

C
AESAR SAID
, “In war, actions of great importance are [often] the result of trivial causes.”
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We have seen and shall see trivial happenings escalate into serious conflicts resulting in loss of life because neither side would stop the escalation. A similar statement of the rule is “It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one.”
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Two classic examples of escalation happened in the 1850s. The first was in 1856, when 2 Cheyenne warriors hailed a mail coach near Fort Kearny in Nebraska. Their party, led by Little Spotted Crow and Little Gray Hair, had sent them to ask the driver for tobacco. The rattled driver saw them gesturing, lashed his mules, pulled his pistol, and started firing. The Cheyenne responded with a volley of arrows. One hit the driver in the arm. When the Cheyenne leaders heard about the incident, they whipped the 2 warriors, then the party returned to camp. The next day, soldiers from the fort attacked the camp in retaliation, killed 10, wounded 10, and destroyed all lodges and supplies. The outraged Cheyenne struck back, killing at least 12 settlers, and then returned to their winter camp. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis ordered a chastising expedition against the Cheyenne. Eight companies were sent. More than 300 warriors met them. Two soldiers were killed and 9 wounded. Apparently, 9 Indians were killed. The soldiers then found a large Cheyenne village 15 miles away. They burned its 200 tipis and most of its supplies. At least 33 people were killed over a misunderstanding about some tobacco.
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The second example of escalation occurred in 1859 when 2 Kiowa, subchiefs Satank and Pawnee, both slightly drunk, entered George Peacock’s store at Walnut Creek Station on the Arkansas River. They demanded goods, but the clerk told them to leave. Satank grabbed a sheep, slit its throat, and filled his mouth with blood. He went back into the store and spit the blood into the clerk’s face. There was a brief fight. Satank withdrew, but then climbed up and began tearing and throwing the sod roof. When he left, he promised to destroy the store. Soldiers called to investigate killed Pawnee the next day. Within 48 hours the Kiowas had attacked a mail stage and killed 4 prospectors.
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Six more settlers were killed by Comanches and Kiowas after the incident at Peacock’s store.
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Almost exactly a year later, Satank killed Peacock.
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Eleven people were killed because Satank refused to leave the store.

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A
RMY DISCIPLINE
, which was very strict, played a part in this story. In 1795, a private deserted from Fort Defiance. The officers offered 2 Shawnee a reward of 10 dollars to bring him back alive and 20 dollars for his scalp. The next day, they brought the scalp to the fort.
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The Lewis and Clark Expedition, described by Jefferson as one to extend external commerce, was staffed for the most part by soldiers. Early in the expedition, Private John Collins was guarding the liquor just after midnight, tapped a barrel, became drunk, then offered Private Hugh Hall enough liquor to get him drunk as well. At the court-martial, Collins was given 100 lashes and Hall 50.
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Two weeks later, Private Alexander Willard fell asleep at his post. He was sentenced to 100 lashes for each of 4 days, but he could have received the death sentence.
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In the fall of 1804, Private John Newman, encouraged by another private, made statements that led to his court-martial on grounds that he had “uttered repeated expressions of a highly criminal and mutinous nature.” He was found guilty and sentenced to 75 lashes and “discarded” from the party.
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The last court-martial in the Lewis and Clark Expedition was that of private Thomas Howard in December 1804. The party was at stockaded Fort Mandan. Howard got to the fort late and scaled the wall. An Indian saw this and scaled the wall as well. Lewis tried to convince the Indian he had done wrong, gave him some tobacco, and dismissed him. Howard was sentenced to 50 lashes, which were forgiven.
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S. L. A. Marshall said that by 1860 army enlisted men were “too often criminals, toughs, drunkards, and fugitives.” The post-Civil War enlisted men knew nothing about Indian warfare.
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The Colorado militia that participated in the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864 has been described by author Duane Schultz in his
Month of the Freezing Moon: The Sand Creek Massacre, November, 1864
as

But there was no lack of courage in general on the part of the soldiers. Although given more freely in this war than in later wars, a total of 428
Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded during the Indian wars, a number exceeded only by those earned in the Civil War and World War II. Here is a summary of the citations of 5 of the medal recipients:

• Glynn, Michael. Private, Company F, 5th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Whetstone Mountains, Ariz., 13 July 1872. Citation: Drove off, single-handed, 8 hostile Indians, killing and wounding 5.
  

• Harrington, John. Private, Company H, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Wichita River, Tex., 12 September 1874. Citation: While carrying dispatches, he was attacked by 125 hostile Indians whom he and his comrades fought throughout the day. He was severely wounded in the hip and unable to move. He continued to fight, defending an exposed dying man.
  

• Herron, Leander. Corporal, Company A, 3rd U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Near Fort Dodge, Kans., 2 September 1868. Citation: While detailed as mail courier from the fort, voluntarily went to the assistance of a party of 4 enlisted men, who were attacked by about 50 Indians at some distance from the fort, and remained with them until the party was relieved.
  

• Irwin, Bernard J., Dr. Assistant surgeon, U.S. Army. Place and date: Apache Pass, Ariz., 13-14 February 1861. Citation: Voluntarily took command of troops and attacked and defeated hostile Indians he met on the way. Surgeon Irwin volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom, 7th Infantry, who with 60 men was trapped by Chiricahua Apaches under Cochise. Irwin and 14 men, not having horses, began the 100-mile march riding mules. After fighting and capturing Indians, recovering stolen horses and cattle, he reached Bascom’s column and helped break his siege.
  

• Jordan, George. Sergeant, Company K, 9th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: Fort Tularosa, N. Mex., 14 May 1880. Citation: While commanding a detachment of 25 men at Fort Tularosa, repulsed a force of more than 100 Indians. At Carrizo Canyon, N. Mex., while commanding the right flank of a detachment of 19 men, on 12 August 1881, he stubbornly held his ground in an extremely exposed position and gallantly forced back a much superior number of the enemy, preventing them from surrounding the command.
  

The settlers, as opposed to the militia or soldiers, usually had no military training. They knew how to use guns, however, in shooting deer, bear, fowl, or other animals to feed their families. That skill and their courage and great numbers were formidable factors. The army didn’t
give them much help until late in the war. Meanwhile, said Denis William Brogan, “the early settlers long needed to acquire a craft equaling the craft of the savages and a savagery not much inferior.”
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As a group, they survived the Indian attacks, although many individuals did not.

O
VER THE
years, there have been 2 different schools of thought on whether the settlers and soldiers had an overwhelming advantage in weaponry. In 1622 the Indians had bows and arrows and stone tomahawks. The settlers had muskets, one-shot muzzle-loading weapons that, although cumbersome, were arguably better than a bow and arrow. The musket was used for 50 years after the settlers arrived. But the guns were so heavy that they had to be supported in a forked rest. It took 2 minutes to load, and it misfired about 30 percent of the time.
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The first guns were so deficient that “their superiority over the bow and arrow was debatable.”
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According to Harold E. Driver, “As late as our own Revolutionary War, George Washington and other military leaders had considerable discussion on whether the bow and arrow should be a part of the armament of the thirteen colonies.”
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In the 1600s, the Dutch, French, and English began selling guns to the eastern Indians. Some of them attacked their neighbors who did not have guns and drove them west. For example, in Minnesota the Ojib-way and Cree drove the Sioux out of the area.
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Of course, the guns were used against the settlers as well. In 1675 Benjamin Church of Rhode Island found that his forces were confronted by a salute of 50 or 60 guns from the Indians.
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The settlers next got breech-loading rifles, then repeating rifles. But traders sold the latest repeating rifles to the Indians.
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There was a time after the Civil War when the army was using old single-shot Springfield rifles while the Indians were using repeating rifles furnished them under treaties for the ostensible purpose of hunting buffalo. The rifles, of course, worked just as well against soldiers or settlers.
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The army rifles were very good—the seven-shot Spencer, with a range of about 1,750 yards; the single-shot Springfield, which was much more accurate and had a 3,500-yard range (almost 2 miles); and the Sharps.
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In 1874, the Comanche beseiged the fort at Adobe Walls, now in Texas. Sharpshooter Billy Dixon saw a Comanche sitting on his horse some distance away. He carefully fired his Sharps, and the Indian fell from the horse. The shot afterward was measured. It was found to have been 1,538 yards, or 0.88 miles.
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