Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/497

Rh which thus invaded the Indian territory. A few lodges of Indians were met in the Hills, and they ran away notwithstanding friendly overtures were made. An attempt was made to lead the pony of one mounted Indian to headquarters, but he got away, and a shot was fired after him which, says General Custer, wounded either the Indian or his pony as blood was found on the ground.

The geologists of the expedition reported that there was gold in the Black Hills, and miners and others began to flock thither. In 1875, troops were sent to remove the trespassers on the Indian reservation, but as fast as they compelled or persuaded the miners to go away others came to fill their places; and at the present date there are more settlers there than ever before.

Of the treaty of 1868 and the so-called peace policy then inaugurated various opinions are entertained. Gen. Sherman, a member of the commission, in his report for 1876, says:—

"The commission had also to treat with other tribes at the south; viz,—the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas and Commanches; were engaged for two years in visiting and confering with these scattered bands; and finally, in 1868, concluded many treaties, which were the best possible at that date, and which resulted in comparative peace on the Plains, by defining clearly the boundaries to be thereafter occupied by the various tribes, with the annuities in money, provisions, and goods to be paid the Indians for the relenquishment of their claims to this vast and indefinite region of land. At this time the Sioux nation consisted of many distinct tribes, and was estimated at 50,000, of whom some 8,000 were named as hostiles.

"These Indians, as all others, were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Indian Bureau, and only small garrisons of soldiers were called for at the several agencies, such as Red Cloud and Spotted Tail on the head of the White Earth River in Nebraska (outside their reservation), and at Standing Rock, Cheyenne,