Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/632

Rh lied.' Sitting Bull, who had refused to come under treaty relations with the Government, based his refusal in these words, sent to the commission of which Assistant Secretary Cowen was chairman: 'Whenever you have found a white man who will tell the truth, you may return, and I shall be glad to see you.'"

"It has been claimed that all Indians found outside of their reservation shall be regarded as hostile. Gen. Sheridan, June 29th, 1869, says in an official order, that all Indians outside the well-defined limits of the reservation are under the original and exclusive jurisdiction of the military authority, and as a rule will be considered hostile. This order is the more surprising to us when we remember that the treaty made by General Sherman and others expressly provided that these Indians might hunt upon the unceded territory; and we find that so late as its last session Congress appropriated $200,000 to be used in part for the payment of the seventh of thirty installments 'for Indians roaming.' We repeat that, under this treaty, it is expressly provided that the Indians may hunt in the unceded territory north and west of the Sioux reservation, and until last year they had the right to hunt in Western Nebraska. We believe that our failure to recognize this right has led to many conflicts between the citizens and army of the United States and the Indians."

"In 1874, the late lamented Gen. Custer made an expedition to the Black Hills. It was done against the protest of the Indians and their friends, and in plain, direct violation of the treaty. Gold was discovered, white men flocked to the El Dorado. Notwithstanding the gross violation of the treaty, no open war ensued. If our own people had a sad story of wrongs suffered from the Indians, we must not forget that the Indians, who own no telegraph-lines, who have no press and no reporters, claimed that they, too, had been the victims of lawless violence, and had a country of untold value wrested from them by force.

"The charge is made that the agency Indians are hostile, and that they have furnished ammunition and supplies to the Indians with Sitting Bull. There is water-navigation for 3,000 miles through this territory, and an unguarded border of several hundred miles along the Canadian frontier. So long as the Indians will sell buffalo-robes at a low price and pay two prices for guns, the greed of white men will furnish them. It is gross injustice to the agents and the Interior Department to accuse them of