immense are its outlays as well as its incomes! I presume this great firm has at this hour $2,000,000 invested in stock, mainly oxen, mules and wagons. (They last year employed 6,000 teamsters and worked 45,000 oxen.) Of course, they are capital fellows – so are those at the fort – but I protest against the doctrine that either army officers or army contractors, or both together, may have power to fasten slavery on a newly organized Territory (as has just been done in New Mexico) under the guise of letting the people of such Territories govern themselves. Yet this is just what 'Squatter Sovereignty,' unmodified by law, amounts to.'
Appendix A.
THE DAUGHTER OF SHAN-TAG-A-LISK:
A PIECE OF WESTERN HISTORY.
[The following as a piece of truthful history was published several years ago in a magazine. That portion of it is omitted which has appeared in the preceding pages.]
When, like the red-man of Plato, the American Indian shall have become a myth, some future anthropologist will wonder what manner of man he was.
Those who have been thrown in contact with him do not love him. His treachery, his cruelty, his basest kind of ingratitude, his wild, half-maniac superstitions, make those who knew him wonder where all of the sentimentality about the 'noble redman' came from.
A true description of the aboriginal Indian dare not be put into print. The novelist and the dramatist of future times will give a character to the Indian which be never possessed, and he will be, like the Spanish Aldoran, knighted and put on horseback after he is dead. Yet, as Buddha says, 'Amid the brambles and rubbish thrown over into the road, a lily may grow.'
It is the object of this brief article to tell the true story of an Indian girl, and what happened to her. But in order that a comprehension may be had, by the reader, of the girl and her situation, it is necessary to go into some detail as to Sioux Indian life and history. It is also necessary to give some details of the Sioux nation as to its customs and geographical location, past and present; for without these facts the life and character of the Indian girl referred to cannot be understood.
Her name was Ah-ho-ap'pa, the Sioux name for wheaten flour. It was the whitest thing they knew. She had other names, as Indian women often have, but when the writer first saw her she was called Ah-ho-ap'pa. How she got the name is forgotten.
Her father's name, Shan-tag-a-lisk, meant 'Spotted Tail'; some of the Indians pronounced it 'Than-tag-a-liska.' He was one of the greatest chiefs the Sioux nation ever had. In order to explain him and what follows, it is best to give a brief description of the Indian question as relates to the Sioux nation at the time of the Civil War. The great Rebellion broke out in 1861, after having been planned for years, and not only were the Northern arsenals emptied, the South armed, and the navy scattered, but the entire Indian population, consisting of several powerful Indian nations, were precipitated upon the frontiers of the North and West. The 'civilized nations' of the Indian Territory formally joined the Confederacy, and helped to raise armies. The other Indians raided and ravished the borders from southern Kansas to the British Possessions, so that it was necessary to station troops in a long cordon, and build forts and transport military supplies in enormous quantities, often at great distances, in some cases a thousand miles from a railroad, and store and guard the supplies. This greatly hampered the General Government. At the time the war closed there were in the Department of 'Kansas and the Territories' nearly 60,000 troops. And long afterwards, when the clouds of the civil war had passed away, I find from a return in my possession that there were stationed along the line to protect Kansas, Nebraska and the overland line to Utah, 10,000 men and twenty-six pieces of artillery. This is exclusive of northern Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas, that required another army. The time to which my narrative refers is between the summer of 1864 and the spring of 1866. After a long, hot march to reinforce Fort Laramie, which was then described as being in 'Idaho Territory,' we, a detachment of Iowa cavalry, arrived at the so-called fort in July, 1864. A regiment of Ohio cavalry had preceded us, and were building additional forts and were holding the passes in the mountains. Fort Laramie seemed, at that time, to the outside world, to be an echo from a vast, unknown, perilous interior. Soon after arrival the writer was detailed as adjutant of the post. Let us now turn to a view of the Sioux nation of that day. The Sioux nation occupied a vast territory, and was subdivided into subordinate tribes which had been so remotely sundered that their languages differed and had run into dialects. Their traditions said that they had come from the salt water, but they could not tell when, for the time was so great. They had traditions of the East but not of the West. They claimed kinship with the Iowas, Missouris, Kansas, and Quapaws or Arkansas Indians. I will repeat here that the tribes of the Sioux nation with which we had to deal were the Brulй, the Oga-llall'ahs, and the Minne-con'-jous, pronounced Minne-kau-zhous. The name of the first is the French interpretation of the Indian name, 'The Burnt-thighs.' The second, 'Oga-llall'-ah,' is a Sioux expression meaning 'The Split-off Band,' i. e., 'The Secessionists.' The third, 'Minne-con'-jous,' means the 'Shallow-water people,' they being residents of the country where the streams were all shallow and choked with sand. It was a vast territory, and was called 'The shallow-water-land.'
Shan-tag-a-lisk was one of the greatest of the Brulй leaders, with a commanding influence over the Minneconjous; which bands roamed through the vast country north, northeast, and east of Fort Laramie, but mostly north of the Platte.
Owa-see'-cha ('Bad-wound') was the chief of the Oga-llall-ahs, which roamed mostly south of the Platte, at the beginning of the time of which I speak. I have stated that Owa-see'-cha had suffered much at the hands of a Pawnee chief in a battle, hence the name.
Shan-tag'-a-lisk and Owa-see'-cha claimed to be able to bring into the field 26,000 Ar-ke'-chetas, or public soldiers. The Sioux nation then had what might be called a regular army. Not all of the men were soldiers; some were mere hunters or food-providers, but most of the strong and able-bodied were enrolled in a sort of military guild called Ar-ke-chetas, and were either out stealing horses, fighting and plundering, or else acting as policemen at home, and taking care of one another while drunk.
To rise among the Ar-ke-chetas the aspirant must 'count coo,' as it was called. The term 'coo' was the French translation 'coup' of the Sioux word strike, and the French term was the one always used by the interpreters, who were mostly French, and the various Indians came to adopt the word themselves. The relative importance of an Indian in his own estimation was the number of times be could count 'coo,' and the Indian never failed to advise his white listener as to the number. The Indian is a great deal of an Ananias. His native character is that of a vain- glorious braggart. He always claims to be a 'heap-big-warchief.' He could fool the white man who knew nothing about it, but the Indians could not fool one another. They knew each other's methods and manners, and they had a way of regulating those things.
A 'coo' meant the blow first given to an enemy by a Sioux with his hand or something in his hand.
The Indian idea was that anybody might shoot an enemy, but it was the man who touched him first that was entitled to the glory. It was not the man who killed an enemy, or who scalped an enemy, that took the glory, but the man who touched the enemy first. One Indian might shoot and instantly kill a foe, another Indian might rush and strike the fallen foe with a riding-whip, and a third might secure the scalp, but the glory went to the Indian who made the 'strike.'
There was much reason in it, for a wounded Indian, like a little learning, was a dangerous thing; and the really brave Indian was he who first struck an enemy with something held in the hand. Sometimes blows were so close together that disputes arose as to who was entitled to the 'coo,' but these matters were settled by evidence in council. No Indian could claim and take a 'coo' that be could not prove. The warriors held their 'coos' by a sort of judicial determination of the tribe, or public concession of known facts.
An Indian who made two or three 'coos' was a hero. When he could claim half a dozen he was a war chief. He was generally killed before he got any more.
Shan-tag-a-lisk was the greatest of the warriors of the Sioux nation, at that time,
and counted more 'coos' than any other one in the nation. He said, 'I count twenty-six coos.' He was a quick, nervy, feminine-looking Indian of only medium size and height, and about forty years of age.
The writer had met both Shan-tag-a-lisk and Owa-see-cha before making the said trip to Fort Laramie. It was
